Complementary web-based geoinformation technology to Geodesign practices

The teaching of territorial planning requires students be trained in geo-information technology tools. The practice was held on engineering course in the University of Bologna and intended to train students in the use of geodesign methods to co-create alternative futures proposals for a territory by applying the framework proposed by Steinitz and using the GeodesignHub web-based platform. The method assumes the construction of representative and evaluative models about the place before the workshop stage, when users are put in contact with data already produced. In order to avoid misunderstanding, noises and encouraging active participation during the workshop, sharing-decision mechanisms using web-based geo-information technology tools were tried, adjusted for the expressive capacity of young millennia in the use of digital social media. As methods, we explored the possibilities of Crowdsourcing Mapping to gather information about main characteristics of the area, WebGis to share georeferenced maps and favor combinations of variables, Delphi method to maximize consensus, Geo-questionnaires for territory evaluation, Word Cloud and Hashtags for ontologies association of design ideas. The case study was Faenza, in Emilia-Romagna, since we had access to VAS data and assessments for the region. As a result, the interest and quality of participation in the co-creation workshop for the area was significantly increased and it was possible to observe the easiness of understanding the processes, due to the improvements applied in language visualization, so that the experience favored the development of knowledge and skills.