Trust in Web GIS: the role of the trustee attributes in the design of trustworthy Web GIS applications

Since the introduction of Xerox PARC Map Viewer, there is a high growth in the number of Web GIS (Geographical Information System) applications for public use in different contexts. These applications instruct, advise and provide the tools for spatial analysis to their users, and the people who use them depend or rely on these systems. Many of these users are non-experts who have no GIS expertise and a limited understanding of spatial data handling. These inherent characteristics of non-expert interaction establish risk and uncertainty, which are further increased due to the complexity of Web GIS interfaces. These issues of uncertainty, risk perception and dependence are all trust-related aspects. Online trust has been repeatedly identified as a major concept for online information systems and its value recognised as it influences the intentions to use and the acceptance of online systems and the overall user experience. However, there is a very limited understanding as to exactly how trust is constructed when people, especially non-experts, interact with Web GIS. To improve knowledge in this domain, this article explores the theoretical foundations on how trust can be investigated in this context. Trust studies (mainly from the e-commerce domain) suggest that a trust-oriented interface design may improve the trustworthiness of online systems, and such attention can be given to Web GIS interfaces. Such studies are reviewed and their applicability is considered in the Web GIS context, taking into consideration their special characteristics. A case study is used to discuss how some features may potentially influence the trustworthiness of Web GIS applications. This article concludes by suggesting future research directions for the implementation of a holistic approach, which is necessary to investigate trust in this context.     

GIS应用开发方法回顾与展望

学术界有多种GIS开发方法,但每种方法都有其适用场合和优缺点。该文总结常见的软件开发方法和GIS实施文献,讨论GIS开发管理框架并展望该领域的研究方向。建议GIS、信息系统、管理科学等领域的学者进行协作,通过一定规模的问卷调查和个人访谈进行GIS项目案例研究,总结中国GIS开发中存在的问题和积累的经验;在此基础上撰写适合中国组织、管理与文化背景的GIS开发指南。     

Improvement of GIS graphics for analysis and decision-making

Abstract

Current geographical information systems (GIS) include functions to create cartographic output interactively or automatically. However, none of the systems presently incorporates mechanisms to ensure correct application of graphic functions. Many of today's users of GIS are not trained in the design and production of graphics and may create maps that confuse or mislead map users. Poorly-designed maps may obliterate the patterns in displayed information.

This article investigates ways to improve the quality of GIS graphical displays and increase their effectiveness for decision-making. Alternatives are presented for improving map design in GIS, ranging from non-technical efforts to enhancement of software functionality. Suggestions propose augmenting users' abilities to create maps in an automated environment, using an approach termed amplified intelligence: key decisions default explicitly to users, whose knowledge is amplified by a range of high-level tools to carry out map design operations automatically.     

An integration of GIS,virtual reality and the Internet for visualization,analysis and exploration of spatial data

This paper explores the way in which GIS, Virtual Reality (VR) and the Internet are closely integrated through the link of Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) for spatial data visualization, analysis and exploration. Integration takes advantage of each component, and enables the dynamic 3D content to be built, visualized, interacted with and deployed all on the Web. To accomplish this, a hybrid approach that merges the conventional client-side and server-side methods is proposed, which offers the best of both worlds in terms of flexibility and capability, as well as the rational use of computing resources. Based on this approach, a Web-based prototype toolkit is designed and implemented by using an affordable desktop GIS through its macro language together with Java, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and HTML programming. This toolkit comprises a 3D visualization tool, a 3D analysis tool, and a Java/VRML interface, which are respectively used for the creation of VRML models from 2D maps, surface analysis (e.g. profile creation and visibility analysis), and interaction (e.g. selecting and querying) with the output VRML worlds of 3D visualization and analysis. It is demonstrated that this toolkit provides an integrated environment, facilitating users to gain insights from the interaction with virtual environments that are built from existing GIS databases.     

北京市居住用地特征价格的空间分异特征

基于2004-2009年北京市居住用地出让地块微观交易数据,利用特征价格模型,研究了地块所在区域的社会属性特征对地价的影响以及地块特征价格的空间分异特征。研究显示:①居住用地价格存在显著的空间依赖效应,轨道交通和公园绿地便利性及合理的土地混合利用能够显著提升地价。②人口密度、租用公共住房比例和居住用地开发强度等地块所属社会经济属性对价格影响显著。③居住用地的空间依赖效应、周围商业办公用地溢出效应、轨道交通和公园便利性的特征价格随着就业可达性、教育状况、租用公共住房比例、犯罪率和居住用地出让比例等地块所属社会经济属性特征的变化,存在较大的分异。     

Bridging the knowledge divide between public and experts using PGIS for land use planning in Malaysia

Ineffective public participation in land-use planning contributes to the lack of communication and understanding between the public and experts, acting as a barrier to successful planning outcomes. In this study, we assess whether Participatory GIS (PGIS) is a suitable method to bridge the communication gap between the public and expert knowledge for planning in the developing country context of Malaysia. Through a mixed methods approach, we investigate whether expert knowledge converges or diverges with the public's perceived knowledge obtained through a PGIS process and assess the potential benefits of PGIS from public and expert planning perspectives. The results indicate more convergence than divergence in knowledge and perspective, indicating that a PGIS process can communicate local knowledge to planning authorities to inform land use and development planning in Malaysia. Both the public and planning experts recognize the potential benefits of PGIS, but successful implementation will require major changes in traditional Malaysian public participation processes.     

Enabling smart data selection based on data completeness measures: a quality-aware approach

Geographic information system (GIS) users rely heavily on the versatile operations of GIS software and the abundant variety of geospatial data from different resources to satisfy their application requirements. However, the convenient use of GIS software has resulted in users easily ignoring the threat of data misuse because of the lack of understanding of data quality. Here we argue that data quality considerations must be coherently assimilated into the GIS operation design to visually present helpful information and ensure the accuracy of data for decision making. Data completeness is selected in this paper to demonstrate how the use of data quality information opens a new dimension to the design of future GIS software. We propose a new model for the representation, analysis, and visualization of data completeness information. With the brand new quantitative measures and informative visual approach, understanding of the data completeness of the illustrated contents in the map interface is enhanced, and inappropriate dataset selection can be effectively prevented. Thus, this paper presents an innovative, integrated and geospatial concept of future GIS operation design, where users are constantly aware of the continuously changing status of data quality based on formalized and quantitative data quality theories.     

Voice,Perceived Fairness,Agency Trust,and Acceptance of Management Decisions Among Minnesota Anglers

Although researchers agree that public participation in natural resource decision making is critical to institutional acceptance by stakeholders and the general public, the processes to gain public perceptions of fairness, agency trust, and acceptance of management decisions are not clear. Using results from a mail survey of Minnesota resident anglers, we used structural equation modeling to examine how instrumental versus symbolic motives related to anglers’ perceptions of agency fairness, trustworthiness, and ultimately acceptance of fisheries management decisions. We applied laboratory research on relationships among procedural fairness, trust, and management acceptance, and then tested models incorporating anglers’ perceptions of voice for anglers and nonanglers in management decisions. Results suggested that trust fully mediated the relationship between procedural fairness and management acceptance. Angler perceptions of angler and nonangler voice both related to views of procedural fairness, but angler voice was more strongly related and was also significantly related to acceptance of management decisions.     

Modeling Environmental Concern for Urban Tree Protection Using Biophysical and Social Psychological Indicators

Urban forest management is being increasingly recognized as a viable policy vehicle for improving community health, sustainable development, and well-being for city dwellers. To improve our understanding of public concern for the local urban forest, a theoretical framework employing concepts traditionally explored in social–psychological and environmental concern studies was tested using data from a public opinion survey of 800 homeowners living in a major urban area in Southern Appalachia, USA. Publicly available geographic information system (GIS) data were analyzed to measure tree canopy density around survey respondents’ properties. Structural equation modeling was used to test the validity of the hypothesized relationships among the survey-derived constructs and the spatial data as predictors of public support for urban forest protection policy. The results suggest that homeowners living around urban trees place greater importance on various attributes of trees, and that tree knowledge and experience are indirectly and positively related to support for urban forest protection.     

Facilitating Public Involvement in Strategic Planning for Wildland Fire Management∗

Wildland fire creates a complex relationship between federal agencies and public stakeholders. Questions surrounding the public's role in federal wildland fire management point to broader questions about the relationships among scientists, policymakers, federal agencies, and the public. In this article we report on a project to provide information about the key components of federal policies that govern wildland fire management. The goal is to enhance the decision support capabilities of a geographic information system (GIS)-based fire risk model and the capacity of users to interpret the outputs of the model from a fire policy perspective. We conclude by making recommendations for how this and other such tools might be refined to improve and expand policy interactions among government land and resource management agencies, scientists, and the public.     

GIS Technology Used to Establish a Digital Cadastral Database

The above outline describes the DCDB being developed by DOSLI, its concepts, structure, applications and derived benefits. For public sector users GIS provides a means of more efficient provision of services. Benefits will be most apparent to organisations which already use and rely on geographic information, but will quickly spread to other organisations. To private sector users GIS offer a valuable way of increasing competitiveness. Indeed, the adoption of GIS may become essential to maintain competitiveness in the analysis of customers and markets. GIS technology has the potential to serve the land management decision making process significantly better than conventional methods. DOSLI believes that its investment in GIS technology and use of the DCDB as the primary geographical reference fabric will realise this potential and result in significant benefits to individual users and long term benefits to the nation as a whole.     

Geographic Information Technologies and the History of a Shoreline: The Case of Chapter 91 in New Bedford,Massachusetts*

This article discusses the use of geographic information technologies to assist researchers in the exploration of historical databases. The case study is a pilot project in which we used geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) to study the history of the Public Waterfront Act (the “Chapter 91” program), a policy designed to balance private property rights, public interest, and environmental protection in the Massachusetts tidelands. The issues discussed range from the role of GIS in society and its limitations as a representational tool to the ability of current GIS to deal with historical data and to manage temporal attributes.     

中国南极地理信息系统的设计及其在互联网上的实现

利用GeoStar地理信息系统基础平台 ,结合我国近 2 0年来的南极考察测绘资料 ,建立了中国南极地理信息系统 ,并在互联网上发布。本文简述了该系统的设计思想和基本功能 ,在此基础上 ,对其今后更好地为我国南极考察、科研和管理提供服务作了展望。     

Issues in GIS development: adapting to research and policy-needs for management of wet grasslands in an Environmentally Sensitive Area

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) represent a rapidly changing technology, and awareness of their capabilities outside the GIS arena has grown rapidly during the last few years. As part of a wide-ranging ecological research programme on wetlands in Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE) developed a GIS for the examination of lowland wet grassland landscapes, and the potential for their restoration (the 'Wetlands GIS'). A flexible approach to the development of the GIS was necessary to accommodate changes in technology and in the needs and interests of the key 'stakeholders' in the project: the research ecologists who supplied much of the data for the GIS and the policy-makers concerned with the application of research findings to land-management problems. This paper explains the rationale behind the use of GIS in the context of ESA-management and its evolution over a three year period. Examples of output are used to demonstrate the benefits of map displays for encouraging communication between developers and users, the data-storage, handling and analytical capabilities of the GIS and its role in matching the needs of researchers and policy-makers.     

POLITICS AND MEDIA RICHNESS IN WORLD WIDE WEB REPRESENTATIONS OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

ABSTRACT. Media-richness theory is applied to World Wide Web sites to demonstrate how Web-page designers are using hypertext markup language to shape conceptions of place and to provide competing visions of the events that have transpired in the former Yugoslavia. We argue that Web sites vary in their interactivity, strategically, to reduce equivocality surrounding conceptions of space and territory. Media-richness theory as applied here allows the development of a heuristic to understand how Web pages communicate information about geographical entities and help to shape perceptions of place.     

Geographic Information Technologies and the History of a Shoreline: The Case of Chapter 91 in New Bedford,Massachusetts

Abstract

This article discusses the use of geographic information technologies to assist researchers in the exploration of historical databases. The case study is a pilot project in which we used geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) to study the history of the Public Waterfront Act (the “Chapter 91” program), a policy designed to balance private property rights, public interest, and environmental protection in the Massachusetts tidelands. The issues discussed range from the role of GIS in society and its limitations as a representational tool to the ability of current GIS to deal with historical data and to manage temporal attributes.

     

The application of GIS in the lands sector of a developing country: Challenges facing land administrators in Ghana

The Government of Ghana is about to take steps under its Land Administration Project to initiate the adoption of geographical information systems (GIS) in the administration of land. This paper identifies some of the challenges for Ghana's leading lands agency, the Lands Commission Secretariat, and highlights problems such as the paucity of reliable data sets and lack of standards. One of the major planning issues in Accra is that of building encroachments, for which no digital information is currently available. The paper reports on a pilot study to record encroachments on public land and demonstrates the type of inconsistencies that are apparent between the planning and cadastral data sets that do exist. The paper emphasizes that appropriate applications of GIS in Ghana's land sector are those that consider the political, social and institutional contexts within which GIS is to be operationalized.     

基于GIS的铁路地质灾害信息管理与预警预报系统

地质灾害对我国铁路建设及其正常运营所带来的负面影响日益显著,利用GIS技术对铁路地质灾害进行有效的管理与控制是减少灾害损失的一条重要途径。针对铁路地质灾害信息管理中数据的标准化、可视化、信息化和网络化的发展与要求,基于GIS技术构建的铁路地质灾害信息管理与预警预报系统实现了铁路地质灾害多源海量数据的统一存储与管理,集铁路灾害信息“数据采集-查询检索-预警预报-Web发布”功能于一体,具有较好的智能化与自动化能力。本文介绍了该系统的总体架构和功能特征,并详细讨论了系统实现中的三个关键问题:铁路地质灾害多源海量数据的采集与存储;铁路地质灾害分析评价与预警预报模型与GIS技术的耦合;铁路地质灾害信息Web发布系统的设计。该系统的最终实现及运行将对我国铁路部门减灾防灾产生重要的积极作用。     

雪龙在线网络信息平台的研发与展望

雪龙在线是一个连接"雪龙"号与国内的网络信息平台,借助于海事卫星通讯链路(BGAN)将船上航行动态信息与科考仪器数据与国内服务器进行交换,并在互联网实时发布获取的动态数据,为极地考察主管部门、考察队员及其家属以及社会公众提供一个了解"雪龙"号航行状态、关注极地考察的窗口,并可通过国内专家团队和专业数据产品为"雪龙"号航...