The world is always in flux. Today that flux is dark. The choice of futures isn’t promising. To make matters worse, data (and its offspring) has lost meaning in an age of anti-knowledge. “Truth” is now “my research on facebook.”  It is instantly spread, without the rigours of review or basic fact-checking, to anyone across every medium. It is simultaneously fascinating and frightening. The data I love challenges and enlightens such ignorance. To do so, it must tell a better story, and tell it well, in non-elitist ways. My data is about change, as told in three acts: prologue (Where we were); tragedy (Where we are); and epilogue (Where we will be). I wish my data to tell its story and hopefully enlighten the flux as much as it can.

About your presenter: James Boxall (james.boxall@dal.ca @jamesGIS) has been the Map Curator within the Dalhousie Libraries for over 30 years. He has taught geography, GIS, and information management across a number of Faculties. He holds appointments in the School of Planning, as well as the Marine Affairs Program. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) and received the RCGS Education Medal in 2012. He was previously on the Board of Governors for the Nova Scotia Museum. Currently he co-chairs the International Network for Learning and Teaching Geography in Higher Education (INLT). He was co-chair of the Canadian Round Table on Geomatics (NRCan) and recently had a co-edited book published - “GIScience Teaching and Learning Perspectives.” As a geographer and educator, his interests revolve around geoliteracy, with a particular focus on applying GIScience to issues of the ocean and climate crisis. He was recently awarded the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal for services to geography and education.

About Love Data week: Check out the Love Data Week research guide (https://dal.ca.libguides.com/lovedata) for additional online events hosted by Dalhousie or by other institutions in Atlantic Canada and beyond! Check back often for new additions!

And don't miss RDM from all angles (https://dal.libcal.com/calendar/events/RDMangles), a presentation available exclusively to the Dalhousie community.

This session will be held online in Teams - link provided in the email you will receive after you register.