VGI systems in the city/university dialect

Abstract

Maps have always been the way to communicate an image of the city and to shape its identity. With the emerging of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) systems a crowd of mappers can make maps on the basis of their geographic world knowledge and it has enabled them to present their perspective on urban places.

In recent years, the role university may play to create the image of urban places has taken much more attention in literature. However, VGI systems have not been considered yet as a possible mean to strengthen the city/university relation. In this contribution we will describe the activities University of Turin is conducting to enhance its territorial role and we will focus on the experiment we managed to evaluate the opportunity VGI systems give in the university/city dialect.