Hello! My name is Kent Jacobs. I am a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Developer/Specialist, Data Scientist and Researcher.
Since I was a child I have always had a passion for geography and technology. I was first exposed to the realm of GIS in late highschool in a Physical Geography course. A few short years later this translated into beginning a degree in Geomatics at Carleton University.
Upon completing my bachelor's in Geomatics, I began an open source GIS research contract for a federal government agency which exposed me to a different world of geospatial technology that I had to explore. As a result, I enrolled in Carleton University's Masters of Science program in Geography (Data Science specialization) in 2016 and successfully completed my thesis defense in August 2018.
I have extensive experience in the following domains:
Within the realm of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), reliability and quality of the geographic information continues to be a pressing concern. Many VGI projects do not have standard geospatial data quality assurance procedures and the reliability of such contributors remains in question. This study investigates the quality of VGI by analysing OpenStreetMap (OSM) data in Ottawa-Gatineau. First, a review of past publications into quality assessment of OSM data is examined. Next, a comparative analysis of OSM data is conducted relative to an authoritative dataset. The OSM historical information of map features and contributors is inspected to gain an understanding of how users are contributing to the database and their ability to do so accurately. Overall, OSM data in the context of Ottawa-Gatineau is comparable to or surpasses authoritative dataset quality and clustering contributors based on historical information can help identify tendencies within a contributor base.
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The existing methods of screening medically unfit older drivers in Canada (i.e., cognitive and physically impaired) needs to be improved by providing more evidence-based, objective measures of driving ability. As older drivers often rely on driving for independence (e.g., visit friends, grandchildren or social clubs), revoking their driver’s license can negatively impact their quality of life. By analyzing the driving history from sensor data on real- world driving, two methods were developed to monitor the changes in driving behaviour to detect a decline in driving ability. Our methods were developed from a dataset that included thousands of trips from 28 older drivers over a few recent years from the Candrive research study. The first method includes the development of total driving area and primary “mean” locations for the further proposal of a real-time GIS monitoring application. For the second method, a detection algorithm was created to track the proportion of unusual trips per month and provides an alert when a consistently high proportion of unusual trips were observed, which may indicate that the older driver is losing the sense of direction and have decline in memory. The methods in this study can improve the screening process for medically unfit older drivers and contribute to reducing healthcare costs and improve physician-patient relationship for older adults.
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SCIMA is an interactive web map application developed with Mapbox JS to assist with the visualization of Service Canada Points of Service at a national level. Canada is home to over 200 Scheduled Outreach and 300 permanent Service Canada Centres, plus additionial Passport Canada and Part-Time Service Canada Centres. Visualizing all of these locations on a static map can become cluttered and unorganized. SCIMA takes full advantage of the modern, seamless interactive maps that can be developed using modern map technologies.
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LMI Explore provides Canadians with a new approach to presenting Labour Market Information (LMI) on Job Bank. Employment and Social Development Canada is exploing with alternative ways to visualize LMI. Through an interactive location based map and dashboard experience, the LMI Explore tool provides users with an accessible and captivating experience to view LMI across Canada. By embracing a digital service delivery model that responds to user feedback enabled by adopting emerging technologies, the LMI Explore tool will help meet the LMI needs of Canadians using Job Bank.
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