Urban Informatics (ABPL90366)

Urban Informatics is the study of cities using digital data, information, knowledge and models to understand trends, complexities and inform the formulation and evaluation of sustainable urban futures.

This subject aims to arm the student with the necessary fundamental concepts and practical understanding of the rise of the Smart City and how urban informatics can assist in evidenced-based and collaborative decision-making.

The new science of cities (Batty, 2013) is driven by the deluge of data that enables the mapping of the Smart City and new geographies that can be explored, analysed and synthesized. Planners, geographers, urban designers, landscape architects, spatial scientists and other disciplines interest in the urban settlements require a deeper knowledge of digital data and how to access, interrogate, visualize and synthesis such data to realise the vision of the smart and sustainable city.

This subject utilises the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) portal as an e-learning resource for exploring what is possible in emerging in the new discipline of urban informatics. Students will also be exposed to a range of other complementary digital environments including open data repositories, urban modelling and visualisation tools and open source geospatial information technologies.