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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00068
- Thesis Title
- Crosswise: Sharing Goals, Sharing Time
- Author
- Tor de Vries
- E-mail
- thesis AT tordevries.com
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- MFA
- Year
- 2005
- Number of Pages
- 55
- University
- Parsons School of Design
- Thesis Supervisor
- David Kanter
- Supervisor e-mail
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Michael Gurstein (NJIT)
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Design & Technology
- Copyright Ownership
- author
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English
- URL where full thesis can be found
- Keywords
- Community informatics, information visualization, data analysis, cooperative planning, sociology, event calendars
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- Frequently, community organizations cannot or do not study what other local organizations are doing, which leads to event conflicts, redundancy, and missed opportunities. This “information obscurity” creates less than optimal social capital, even between organizations with mutual objectives. Today’s online event calendars are libraries of information rather than planning assistants for community leaders. The Crosswise system approaches this issue by adding information visualization and analysis to a web-based event calendar, exploring a new direction for community informatics. For leaders and planners, events are analyzed to highlight similarities, possible synergy, and opportunity for new events. This project documents the design and production of Crosswise, its initial use by Mission Columbia (a faith-based group of community leaders in Hudson, New York), and development of “what if” scenarios derived from Crosswise-based analysis of past event data.