IPB Lecturer to Poland Explores Collaboration in the Field of VEP and GPS Tracking
Dr. Akhmad Arifin Hadi, Secretary of the Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural Institute (Faperta IPB) joined the Mobility Staff to Warsaw University of Life Science program with an Erasmus plus sponsor from the European Union, 11-17 November 2018. Warsaw University of Life Science included ranked 112 QS World University Ranking (EECA) 2018.
"I visited the Department of Landscape Art under the Faculty of Horticulture, Biotechnology and Landscape Architecture. There I taught S2 and S3 students and discussed with researchers about Visitors' Employed Photography (VEP) and GPS tracking to identify human preferences and movements in a landscape. "Through this method, objects or sights that are liked by respondents or visitors from a park or landscape can be identified through photos taken by visitors using their respective smartphones," explained Dr. Akhmad.
Not only that, the location where visitors are located can also be detected through the Geo tracker application such as "Locus Map" or similar applications, both on Android or iPhone. Data taken by respondents in the park or landscape in the form of photographs and their description, as well as the direction of the footsteps of each respondent are then transferred to the researcher's laptop or smartphone via email or social media. It can be said that this research method of landscape preference and human movement can be carried out without paper (paperless) but uses data transfer over the internet. Data obtained from visitors were then analyzed spatially using Geographic Information System (GIS) Software so that it was found out which locations the respondents took photos and paused longer, and what objects were photographed by respondents through searching the contents of each photo.
According to Dr. Akhmad, actually the VEP method itself has long been used by researchers in detecting the preferences of a landscape. This method was first introduced by G.J Cherem in the 1970s. But many researchers who apply this method mention their shortcomings, which are relatively high implementation costs. To carry out this research, researchers must buy a pocket camera and film roll and share it with each respondent, and must provide photo printing costs, photo shipping costs and the cost of sending the camera to the researcher. But since smartphones are becoming everyday items for humans today that are supported by an increasingly extensive internet network, VEP research can be carried out more efficiently. In line with this, GPS technology to detect the movement of smartphone objects is also available and increasingly accurate. The VEP method combined with GPS tracking can be implemented optimally to identify landscape preferences of visitors to a landscape and their movements more accurately and quantitatively.
"I still don't really understand what the Industrial Revolution 4.0 era is, but for me, the implementation of this research is a manifestation of the rapid development of information technology today. The research that I conducted (VEP and GPS tracking) is a response to the development of information technology today where the technology is present in our daily lives and can be used optimally to streamline the implementation of existing methods and get more accurate and measurable results, "said Dr. Akhmad.
As a follow up to the activities of this mobility staff, the Warsaw University of Life Science will visit IPB in April 2019 to develop cooperation with the IPB Landscape Architecture Department in the field of VEP research and GPS tracking. (NR)
