Nowadays, new knowledge on the immaterial characteristics of surrounding landscapes can easily be produced by relying on volunteer contributions. However, the spatial distribution of the collected data may be influenced by the contributor’s location. Using data sets derived from the administration of a map-based survey, aimed at collecting explicit spatial information on sites perceived as having positive and negative qualities in Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy), a descriptive analysis and a non-parametric procedure are employed to study the relevance of a respondent’s municipality of reference on the mapping activity. The findings indicate that the volunteered geographic data collected in the survey are not uniformly distributed across the study area and that a different spatial relationship exists between mapped elements and a respondent’s residence when the two different attributes of interest are considered. The results underline the importance of considering volunteers’ characteristics when engaging local populations in participatory initiatives.

Online GIS‐based applications that combine mapping and public participation to collect citizens' voices on their surrounding environment are a way to collect original spatial data that do not already figure in authoritative data sets. However, these applications, relying on non‐expert users, might produce spatial data of insufficient quality for the purpose for which they are collected. This article presents an approach for assessing the positional accuracy of vague landscape features, using the results from a map‐based survey completed by a group of volunteers in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy. The spatial section of the survey, gathering both georeferenced data and textual information on the mapping activity, allows the assessment of whether there is a correspondence between the mapped features and the intended map locations. The findings reveal a greater accuracy among participants in completing the mapping activity relating to degraded sites than to those of beauty.

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There are several references in the literature highlighting the importance of the international scientific mobility studies and several examples of how this academic population has been characterized. Typically, the analysis of academic mobility has been conducted by applying extensive surveys to a “representative” sample, in a specific moment in time, in which the profile of the researchers, that are working or studying in a foreign country, is then inferred. These analyses may suffer of structural lack of representativeness since the target population is unknown. As a structural and inherent issue in this research field, this article presents the results provided by the Portuguese academic social network GPS (Global Portuguese Scientists). It uses a valuable and exclusive data set of the research experiences, provided by Portuguese researchers, to describe and understand the academic dynamic of these researchers over the last years. The analysis considers different socio-demographic characteristics and the type of research (position, scientific research area, duration of the experience) they have been doing. The analysis shows that GPS users are pulled to the core countries of the science world system and points out that each destination of the Portuguese diaspora is associated with specific features of the mobile researchers and their research activity.