June 11, 2009
[Renee] NewfoundlandGroup points to the issue of "Observer engagement with the issue beyond generating observations. YES. For us, participation is a means to an end. That end is action of some kind. How do we encourage that action? Maybe online participation, by its nature, discourages action. We need to cover this more at a later time.
[Renee] Another difference concerns NewfoundlandGroup's comments "Degree of investment in the issue (geographic proximity, interest group, economic ties, political ties)". We believe that we can distinguish between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 on, for want of a better phrase, how nebulous the project is. Traditional venues for employing participation with geospatial technologies are structured (e.g., planning processes, an expert coming into a village, a grassroots-led initiative to preserve/prevent something). You can't say the same for Web 2.0. People contributing content? That could be done for any number of reasons, none of which may have to do with a structured venue. Still, Hanif and I are hard-pressed to conceptualize PGeoweb without some kind of structure (perhaps Mc Conchie would call it "instigation"). So this ultimately ends up being an area of commonality.
[Renee] Yolanda's project didn't start out as monitoring project. Yolanda, could you elaborate? There was an initial desire for monitoring and participation, but not raison d'etre.
[Renee] Outcome or goals of P Geoweb differ by group (see RinnerChung), goal (Chmura). "Other Ryerson" makes me wonder if effectiveness/outcome is determined exogenously.
[Pamela] Renee, I am intrigued by your comments about how Web 2.0 researchers will push back against efforts to contextualize. Intuitively I 'get' that but can you direct me/us to a reading/post/something where these ideas are articulated? thanks![Renee] I'll have to look for one. I get this from conversations with the Web 2.0 guys, who by the way, care nothing about how geographers, planners frame things (part of Keen's argument in Cult of the Amateur). If I were to link it to any other concept, I'd say that it's part of the crowdsourcing quality. It seems a bit counter-intuitive. They'll say that the ideas occur in the cloud. At some point the content gets aggregated (knowledge through accumulation, eyeballs, and co-mingling) and purposed (or repurposed). In other words, it's not purposed from the beginning; purpose is a happy accident. That's the organic and inductive dream of Web 2.0.
[Renee] Different whether you start with the tool and define the project versus the project exists and then you develop the tool (the tool evolves from the tool). Pamela, can you elaborate?
[Pamela] Projects that are tool-, process-, data-driven (also people/ grassroots-driven?). Trying to identify starting point. [Yolanda] this would determine engagement, network of participants. [Renee] to what extent is it hammer in search of nail? In Web 2.0 cloud world, how easy is it to even determine the starting point? [Pamela] Perhaps we need Web 2.0 archaeologists?
[Pamela] Renee asked if planners consider consultation data gathering ... this is a good question ... we'll talk about this here in the 'other Ryerson' planners' node and report back.
[Pamela] I think there's a different between using geoweb tools to ask people what they've seen (monitoring) vs. what they want (preferences).
[Renee] Is citizen sensing different from participation? [Yolanda] maybe sensing is participation but it's at the low end of participation. [Renee] interesting that sensing is not part of ladder. Why is that? Maybe it's a matter of expert control over information.
[Pamela] Sensing is part of institutional process and participation is part of public processes. These processes get pushed through different criteria. Latter public process is considered differently because it's voted on by elected officials. [Renee] but so does information collected by sensing, albeit indirectly.
[Yolanda] Citizen sensing is done through sites like Frog Watch. It's data collection. But to me, it's also participation and it suggests that they're engaged elsewhere (e.g., in other volunteer activities, at public meetings). Talked about process of creating a forest management plan - [Renee - can you elaborate?] I deal with quantitative and not qualitative information (e.g., the latter being from surveys of public). As scientists we have this inherent mistrust of public data (because it's inaccurate, because we haven't seen it ourselves). [Renee] what happens if sensors are seen as part of the democratic process? Would that increase or decrease trust? [Yolanda] trust is based on (acquired by) reliability of data (accuracy, precision of observation of species identification and location and time). I evaluate the reliability of the data based on expertise of individual and their familiarity with issue (e.g., long-time hunter in region). Could be self-evaluation or I could evaluate it, so I could learn to trust it. Not sure what would happen if sensing was viewed as part of democratic process. (Renee - then the sensors have an agenda?) [Pamela] maybe it's a matter of data being at arms-length if it's citizen sensed? [Yolanda] We need to recognize our biases as scientists, planners. Hard time recognizing the biases.
[Renee] what about all the data on the web? Are we harvesting it (particularly the scientists)? [Pamela] if we extract data from the web into a process-driven context then we lose the biases inherent in the data. [Yolanda] we need to know the source of the data so we recognize the biases. Don't think that scientists would be sucking data off the web. There are counter examples to this--scientists are utilizing citizen sensed data--and these examples are published in major journals but the origins of the citizen data are clearly documented. [Renee] We need to know the provenance, the metadata. I brought up example of New Orleans community organizer who presented at Where 2.0. She mentioned neogeography carpet baggers, who seemingly created all these flashy applications with great ease. Municipalities said to community organizer: Why do you need all this money? Why participation needed? These mashups are easy. All the information can be crowdsourced. Will this eventually happen in the realm of science? [Yolanda] Don't know about ecology but we see it in medicine and veterinary science with people googling their conditions. "It's all out there. Why do we need, e.g., nutritionists?"
[Pamela] whenever raw data is assembled, we mediate in various ways - is it reproducible, defensible? Whole set of filters. What are our criteria for mediation?
[Renee] In this grant we'll look at the differences between experts and non-experts. But we also can look at the concept of participation across domains.
Chris and Yolanda can work together on caribou project. Chris can spin off a political piece.