Websites and Internet applications that allow user interaction and participation in online discourses have captured the attention of planners and researchers for the potential to increase engagement. However, there is concern about how inclusive these initiatives are of cultural diversity. In this paper I look beyond the binary ‘digital divide’ concept of having Internet access or not in an attempt to bridge the gap between the high level of abstraction present in discussions of the ‘network society’ or ‘global cities’ with the normative discussions of online citizen participation in planning practice. A theoretical analysis of what participation by diverse publics online entails and what the stakes are is combined with a discussion of Web 2.0 practices to provide a ‘lens’ for considering the potential of Internet tools to serve diverse communities as the technology and our use of it continues to change. This analysis informs the recommendation that principles of collaborative planning and expressions of local knowledge should guide future research and practice.

This paper presents a proposal to create a graph representation for GIS, using both spatial and non-spatial data and also including spatial relations between spatial objects. Because graphs are a powerful and flexible knowledge representation we will be able to combine spatial and non-spatial data at the same time and this is one of the strengths of the proposal. We hope to apply this knowledge representation to the data mining process with GIS data including three types of spatial relations: topological, orientation and distance.

After a century of semi‐restricted floodplain development, Southern Alberta, Canada, was struck by the devastating 2013 Flood. Aging infrastructure and limited property‐level floodproofing likely contributed to the $4–6 billion (CAD) losses. Following this catastrophe, Alberta has seen a revival in flood management, largely focused on structural protections. However, concurrent with the recent structural work was a 100,000+ increase in Calgary's population in the 5 years following the flood, leading to further densification of high‐hazard areas. This study implements the novel Stochastic Object‐based Flood damage Dynamic Assessment (SOFDA) model framework to quantify the progression of the direct‐damage flood risk in a mature urban neighborhood after the 2013 Flood. Five years of remote‐sensing data, property assessment records, and inundation simulations following the flood are used to construct the model. Results show that in these 5 years, vulnerability trends (like densification) have increased flood risk by 4%; however, recent structural mitigation projects have reduced overall flood risk by 47% for this case study. These results demonstrate that the flood management revival in Southern Alberta has largely been successful at reducing flood risk; however, the gains are under threat from continued development and densification absent additional floodproofing regulations.

As part of the ongoing globalization process, software is no longer developed by a sole enterprise which is based at one single location only. In turn, distributed engineering teams are continuously modifying software by bringing in their local knowledge and country-specific expertise. Due to this cooperation on a globalscale, today's software engineers require distinct skills and capabilities allowing them to face a paradigm called Global Software Engineering (GSE). However, regarding today's universities curricula, the teaching of GSE can be seen as an emerging discipline which is increasingly gaining attention. This paper depicts the progression and lessons learned from four different globally distributed software engineering projects executed by late bachelor and master students from five different universities. In doing so, the article facilitates future GSE endeavors in academia and industry.

Websites and Internet applications that allow user interaction and participation in online discourses have captured the attention of planners and researchers for the potential to increase engagement. However, there is concern about how inclusive these initiatives are of cultural diversity. In this paper I look beyond the binary ‘digital divide’ concept of having Internet access or not in an attempt to bridge the gap between the high level of abstraction present in discussions of the ‘network society’ or ‘global cities’ with the normative discussions of online citizen participation in planning practice. A theoretical analysis of what participation by diverse publics online entails and what the stakes are is combined with a discussion of Web 2.0 practices to provide a ‘lens’ for considering the potential of Internet tools to serve diverse communities as the technology and our use of it continues to change. This analysis informs the recommendation that principles of collaborative planning and expressions of local knowledge should guide future research and practice.