Using Electronic Mail (E-mail) Surveys for Geographic Research: Lessons from a Survey of Russian Environmentalists*

The expansion of the Internet and e-mail access around the globe, especially into less-developed areas, raises the question of how geographers might use this technology for research purposes and the development of appropriate methodologies. This paper identifies three ways in which the use of e-mail surveys for geographic research differs from traditional mail surveys. First, there are substantial differences in selecting an appropriate sample population. Second, electronic medium considerations such as alphabet character translation, survey format, and receiving end conditions pose unique data collection challenges. Third, ascertaining that e-mail addresses to be included in a survey are operative is discussed as a useful means of maximizing the potential of an e-mail survey. Examples from an e-mail survey of environmentalists in Russia illustrate these points.     

地理学本科生科研训练体系的构建与实践

大学本科阶段是创新性人才培养的关键时期。北京师范大学地理学基地一直在努力探索本科生早期科研训练的机制、模式与途径,以研究性教学和教学科研互动的新理念,依托基地所拥有的国家、教育部和北京市重点实验室、国家一级重点学科、国家级科学研究和教学研究项目等丰富的科研资源和院士、长江学者、杰出青年基金获得者、教学名师等高水平的首席导师+教学团队师资,建立并完善本科生科研立项制度,构建多学科平台、多元模式、多阶段的阶段-学科-能力三维体系的因材施教的科研训练体系。     

Linking Urban Field Theory with Gis and Remote Sensing to Detect Signatures of Rapid Urbanization on the Landscape: Toward a New Approach for Characterizing Urban Sprawl

The effect on travel time of the decentralization of land use is an unresolved issue in the literature on travel behavior. Here we report our testing of the contention that commute times are lower in polycentric than in monocentric urban systems with data from the 1998 Netherlands National Travel Survey. Multilevel regression analysis indicates that the role of urban form variables in the explanation of commute times is limited in comparison with micro-level personal and household characteristics. Car commute times are shown to be higher in most poly-centric systems. In addition, car commute times tend to increase with higher residential densities and with the size of daily urban systems (DUS). The results suggest that the relocation of residences and employment in the Netherlands has not by and large led to lower commute times. One reason for this might be the strong spatial planning tradition in the Netherlands.