The convergence of GIS and social media: challenges for GIScience

It is hard to believe that 10 years have passed since we wrote our guest editorial for IJGIS (Sui and Goodchild 2001 Sui, D.Z. and Goodchild, M.F. 2001. Are GIS becoming new media?. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 15(5): 387–390. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Using the nascent evidence that emerged in the late 1990s, we speculated back in 2001 that geographic information systems (GIS) were rapidly becoming part of the mass media. On the basis of the proposition of GIS as media, we were able to link GIScience with theories in media studies such as Marshall McLuhan's law of the media, which considers modern media as modifiable perceptive extensions of human thought (Sui and Goodchild 2003 Sui, D.Z. and Goodchild, M.F. 2003. A tetradic analysis of GIS and society using McLuhan's law of media. Canadian Geographers, 47(1): 5–17. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Remarkable conceptual and technological advances in GIS have been made during the past 10 years. The goal of this review is to provide an update on the ‘GIS as media’ argument we made 10 years ago and to discuss the new challenges for GIScience posed by the growing convergence of GIS and social media.     

Community-based production of geographic information using open source software and Web 2.0

This article presents an innovative approach to citizen-led production of Web-based geographic information where new and/or existing digital map features are linked to annotations or commentary and citizens engage in synchronous and/or asynchronous discussion. The article discusses the relationship of the approach to public participation geographic information systems (PPGISs) and the emerging challenges associated with volunteered geographic information. A custom-developed, open source software tool named MapChat is used to facilitate the citizen inputs and discussions. The information generated from applying the approach through a series of community workshops is presented and discussed in light of current issues in PPGIS and volunteered geographic information research.     

开放式GIS在大数据时代的机遇与障碍

GIS 领域的发展在21 纪初走到了十字路口。本文旨在讨论下一个阶段GIS 发展的多个愿景,而新兴的开放式GIS应作为一个指导思想。开放式GIS包含8 个维度：数据、软件、硬件、规范、研究、出版、资金和教育。对于GIS 研究团体,开放式GIS 提供了4 个令人振奋的机会：①技术发展。技术的发展与突破可用于解决空间上的海量数据所带来的问题;②应用开发。主要是用于集体或个人决策的应用程序的开发;③增加全民参与的机会。地理科学可以发展成一种开放性的全民科学,人们将对日益变化的地球增进了解;④教育的机遇。通过开放式GIS能更好地实现全民地理科学教育。虽然开放式GIS 的实现存在着学术、法律、社会、政治和环境等障碍,但可以肯定的是,开放式GIS在未来的科学研究和教育方面将会变得越来越重要。     

A crowd sensing system identifying geotopics and community interests from user-generated content

This paper presents a crowd sensing system (CSS) that captures geospatial social media topics and allows the review of results. Using Web-resources derived from social media platforms, the CSS uses a spatially-situated social network graph to harvest user-generated content from selected organizations and members of the public. This allows ‘passively’ contributed social media-based opinions, along with different variables, such as time, location, social interaction, service usage, and human activities to be examined and used to identify trending views and influential citizens. The data model and CSS are used for demonstration purposes to identify geotopics and community interests relevant to municipal affairs in the City of Toronto, Canada.     

Cyber Literacy for GIScience: Toward Formalizing Geospatial Computing Education

The unprecedented availability of geospatial data and technologies is driving innovation and discovery but not without the risk of losing focus on the geographic foundations of space and place in this vast “cyber sea” of data and technology. There is a pressing need to educate a new generation of scientists and citizens who understand how space and place matter in the real world and who understand and can keep pace with technological advancements in the computational world. We define cyberliteracy for GIScience (cyberGIScience literacy) and outline eight core areas that serve as a framework for establishing the essential abilities and foundational knowledge necessary to navigate and thrive in this new technologically rich world. The core areas are arranged to provide multiple dimensions of learning ranging from a technological focus to a problem solving focus or a focus on GIScience or computational science. We establish a competency matrix as a means of assessing and evaluating levels of cyberGIScience literacy across the eight core areas. We outline plans to catalyze the collaborative development and sharing of instructional materials to embed cyberGIScience literacy in the classroom and begin to realize a cyberliterate citizenry and academe. Key Words: big data, computational thinking, geographic education, GIS, spatial thinking.     

GIS在土地适宜性评价中的应用与展望

该文阐述了土地适宜性评价的概念和内涵,综述了GIS支持下的各种土地适宜性评价方法及其优缺点。如叠加分析方法、多指标决策模型以及人工智能方法,以研究实例说明如何通过GIS系统引导用户参与分析评价的过程,强调技术层面和群众参与是进行土地适宜性评价不可缺少的两个层面。     

A comparative approach towards ethnic segregation patterns in Belgian cities using multiscalar individualized neighborhoods

Levels of spatial segregation in Western European cities are persistent over space and time. To demonstrate the degree or appearance of spatial segregation, most studies on urban residential patterns still rely on fixed spatial units, aspatial measures and single scales. However, a spatial or temporal comparison of patterns and levels of segregation based on such units or metrics is not without problems. To that end, this paper takes an explicit geographic approach and considers individualized neighborhoods using EquiPop-software, allowing various scales. Using the k-nearest neighbors for all individuals increases international comparability and facilitates interpretation, so far often hampered in segregation research. This multiscalar, multigroup comparative approach on ethnic urban geographies – using Belgium as a case study – provides an empirical illustration of a valuable method and tool applicable in segregation research, thereby furthering the comprehension of the increasingly diverse urban geographies and building on emerging work in the US, Europe and beyond.     

OpenCIS—Open Source GIS‐based web community information system

Geographic Information System (GIS) technology has many applications and plays a vital role in the majority of the daily operations by government and public administration. However, due to its technical complexity and cost, communities lacking the expertise and resources cannot benefit from this technology. The OpenCIS project, a user‐friendly free Open Source GIS‐based Web Community Information System, seeks to address this issue by bridging the gap between a simple map viewer and full GIS, representing one of the first steps towards the goal of grassroots empowerment through GIS technology.     

Guest editorial: the 2001 UK census: remarkable resource or bygone legacy of the 'pencil and paper era'?

National censuses are expensive. They are conducted infrequently. They collect information that some feel infringes their human rights, and people are required by law to complete them. The outputs are not perfect, and in some situations may be misleading. Some suggest that censuses hark back to a period when regularly collected administrative data were not available. These are some of the views held about national censuses. Why, then, would others argue that they are an essential resource? In this paper, we consider some of the pros and cons of conducting national censuses, before introducing a series of papers that draw on early data available from the 2001 UK census. We argue that these papers, and the wealth of research that will be conducted in the future with 2001 census data, make a strong case for supporting the compulsory collection of personal information about the 'entire' population every ten years.     

Measuring Change in Place Values for Environmental and Natural Resource Planning Using Public Participation GIS (PPGIS): Results and Challenges for Longitudinal Research

Landscape values are a type of place value and are identified and mapped using public participation GIS (PPGIS). PPGIS engages nonexperts to identify important spatial information for environmental or natural resource planning. In 1998, we used PPGIS to identify landscape values for the Chugach National Forest (Alaska) plan revision process. In 2012, we conducted a longitudinal study of the same national forest using Internet PPGIS to identify changes in landscape values. The empirical results indicate stability in landscape values both in importance and spatial distribution. However, the use of different PPGIS methods (paper map vs. Internet) in the longitudinal study also introduced challenges in interpreting and explaining the spatial results. We discuss trade-offs in conducting longitudinal PPGIS research using mixed methods. PPGIS appears well suited for public lands planning, and national forest planning in particular, but barriers to use, such as regulatory approval, remain formidable.     

Public Participatory GIS and the Geography of Inclusion

Public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS) have been advanced as a means to include those who have been traditionally excluded from numerous place-specific governance activities, including planning and policymaking and as a way to resolve some of the long-standing tensions between critical traditions in human geography and the ever-expanding field of GIS. Despite the rapid adoption of participatory GIS by academics, government officials, and planning professionals, there are few guidelines of best practices for PPGIS researchers and practitioners to draw on and little effort has been made to understand how and in what ways PPGIS efforts are (or perhaps are not) effective. This article contributes to these important debates by evaluating the geography of participation in a recent participatory planning project undertaken in Muncie, Indiana. Using the mapped information that was generated from a series of public meetings, we have identified the presence of significant spatial bias in the process of participation that affected the resulting plan. This was an unexamined source of bias during this process and an example of why any emerging conversations about the best practices for PPGIS must include a consideration of the geography of participation.     

Integrating GIS and data warehousing in a Web environment: A case study of the US 1880 Census

While the business intelligence sector, involving data warehouses and online analytical processing (OLAP) technologies, is experiencing strong growth in the IT marketplace, relatively little attention has been devoted to the problem of utilizing such tools in conjunction with GIS. This study contributes to the development of this research area by examining the issues involved in the design and implementation of an integrated data warehouse and GIS system that delivers analytical OLAP and mapping results in real‐time across the Web. The case study chosen utilizes individual records from the US 1880 population census, which have recently been made available by the North Atlantic Population Project. Although historical datasets of this kind present a number of challenges for data warehousing, the results indicate that the integrated approach adopted offers a much more flexible and powerful analytical methodology for this kind of large social science dataset than has hitherto been available.     

社会科学和公共政策的空间化和GIS的应用

近年来社会科学的发展出现三大潮流,即“科学化”(强调借用自然科学的计量分析方法和模型)、“空间化”(关注社会经济现象的空间变化和相互作用) 和“应用化”(侧重于政策性规划性强的实用课题)。空间化的社会科学,尤其是应用研究离不开地理信息系统(GIS) 方法的应用,因为GIS 在整合、分析各种数据尤其是空间数据方面有独特优势。本文举例演示GIS 在相关领域(如经济学、语言历史、社会学特别是犯罪学、公共卫生和规划)的广泛应用。选取的案例来源于笔者多年研究的经验,包括美国联邦政府多家研究机构(NSF、NIH、NIJ) 资助的多项研究成果,旨在说明GIS在社会科学和公共政策研究中的应用价值。     

多源空间数据无缝集成研究

随着地理信息系统的社会化发展 ,空间数据共享成为一种必然要求 ,然而要真正实现空间数据共享 ,多格式空间数据集成是一个亟待解决的问题。多源空间数据无缝集成( SIMS)技术实现了一种特殊的数据访问机制 ,不仅提供了直接存取多种数据格式的能力 ,而且使 GIS软件具有跨数据源复合分析功能 ,是实现空间数据共享的有效的技术基础。本文阐述了 SIMS技术体系结构 ,并探讨了 SIMS技术在 GIS软件开发中的应用。     

一种改进人口数据空间化的方法:农村居住地重分类

人口( 统计) 数据空间化是解决统计数据与自然要素数据融合分析的有效途径。本文在论 述已有人口空间化方法的基础上, 认为遥感影像得到的居民地数据是表达人口分布的最好指标。 为了使居民地数据更好地应用于人口空间化的研究, 论文在分析各种与人口居住密度相关指标 的基础上, 确定了用农村居民地面积所占百分比对农村居民地进行重新分级, 然后应用于人口空 间化的计算。结果检验表明, 人口空间分布数据的误差从分级前的17.4%降到分级后的12%, 尤 其是误差高于30%的乡镇个数从8 个减少到1 个, 该方法有效地提高了人口空间数据的精度。     

地理表达研究进展

地理表达是地理学的一个基本问题,也是地理信息科学研究面临的一个重大挑战.从地理表达机理、内容和形式的角度,对近期地理表达研究进行了总结.本质上,地理表达是一个空间认知、信息转换与信息传输的交互过程.地理表达内容涉及地理实体及其空间关系、不确定性、地理动态及地理本体等方面.地理表达形式经历了从自然语言、地图到GIS的演变...     

PPGIS approach for defining multimodal travel thresholds: Accessibility of popular recreation environments by the water

It is essential to ensure equal accessibility to services, such as sport and recreation facilities or green and water environments. Differences in accessibility can potentially cause negative health and social welfare implications. Accessibility and service area analyses from the perspective of access equality are typically rather simple. They are often based on arbitrary travel-distance thresholds and made only with a single mode of transport in mind. Thus, they exclude the multidimensional nature of accessibility where individuals' travel behavior and perceived accessibility also play an important role. In this paper, a PPGIS method was used to empirically investigate distances and durations that respondents travel with different modes of transport to access popular water environments. Service area analyses were built on person-based and objectively measured threshold values that not only take into account the spatio-temporal elements of transport networks and a land use component but also recognize the requirements and preferences of individuals and their capacity to access and participate. The results showed that the most common mode of transport to access waters is walking. Generally, the residents travel by foot for 1.7 km to access water environments. Cars were found as the second most common mode of transport used, and most of the popular water environments are accessible by car from every corner of the study area in a given travel threshold time. The results demonstrate the importance of deriving local parameters and the potential of the PPGIS approach for accessibility and service area delineation.     

The State of Geography Education Research

Abstract

College enrollment and Association of American Geographers membership data reveal a significant deficit in minority participation in geography and environmental science. The author asserts that this dearth may have its origin at the K-12 level, where science subjects are presented in a manner that alienates socioeconomically disadvantaged pupils. With recent research indicating that low-income and nonwhite communities are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation, it is pertinent that methods be developed to increase the number of minority students choosing to pursue environmental careers. Involving students directly in projects investigating the pollution in their communities aids in enhancing student interest. By participating in a lead (Pb) contamination study, students are introduced to several geographic subdisciplines including cartography, demography, and environmental geography. Students also acquire skills in spatial analysis, map interpretation, and graphic design. Complementing basic lead-soil field investigations with geographic information systems, spreadsheet, and/or computer mapping software, offers students a valuable high-tech learning experience.