Data Analytics for Rural Transformation

Posted on Tuesday, March 5th, 2019

the Data Analytics Centre at Algonquin College hosted an open session

On Feb. 26, the Data Analytics Centre at Algonquin College hosted an open session demonstrating ‘Data Analytics for Rural Transformation’ / DART.

DART is a cloud-based software solution supporting the socio-economic planning of rural communities. It can integrate and visualize data from a variety of sources in various formats into one dashboard-style interface with powerful search and reporting functions.

The event was attended by Mike Barre (National Research Council-IRAP), Alessandro Alasia (Statistics Canada), Mariane Huard (Standards Council of Canada) and Phillip Dawe (Centre for Security Science).

DART addresses the following challenge: In the face of evolving open data and e-government initiatives, rural municipalities and community organizations have access to an increasing amount of data but have limited capacity to amalgamate, interpret, analyze and visualize it. For data to be useful in support of evidence-based decision-making, municipalities and organizations require the ability to derive insights quickly, efficiently and with limited resources.

With DART municipal and community-based organizations have access to:

• User-Friendly data integration and visualization tool with a dashboard interface

• Reports that are available by custom geography

• Flexibility for land-use planning, economic development, social services, etc.

• Regularly updated with latest available data

• Map-based visualization

Through one intuitive interface, the DART application can import community profiles and other data from a variety of sources in various formats, enable demographic, economic and property queries, calculate proximity to community resources and visualize the information in charts, graphs, or maps.

DART was developed as a collaborative research project between the ‘Data Analytics Centre’ and ‘Community Analytics Associates’. Students from various programs contributed to the effort: Computer Technology – Data Science, Computer Programmer, Interactive Media and Design and Graphic Design. ‘Community Analytics Associates’ currently ‘incubates’ in the DARE District.

For further information, contact:

• Nelson Rogers, nelson@communityingenuity.ca

• Robert Leitch, r.leitch@sympatico.ca

• Theo Mirtchev, mirtcht@algonquincollege.com


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