Participatory Geoweb Session
Session Abstract: The Geoweb—the intersection of geospatial technologies and information and Web 2.0—has created a paradigm shift in GIScience. A significant contribution of the Geoweb is its seeming facility to engage the public, whether this is accomplished through geo-referenced user generated contact, screen scrapings and mashups, or the geolocation of stories and points of interests on digital earths. A small, albeit uncritical, literature is emerging on the participation of the public in this emerging medium.
Presentations in this session showcase applications of and frame a critical research agenda for the Participatory Geoweb, which is the involvement of advocacy nonprofits, local communities, and marginalized peoples—the civil society—in the Geoweb (including the creation of virtual civil societies). They build on prior research in participatory GIS, and look towards assessing the varied technologies of the participatory Geoweb, understanding the nature of public, the extent to which participation is actually occurring and the association between participation and empowerment. Because this is a new medium, and (potentially) a new way of thinking about distributed online geospatial information, existing lessons of PGIS do not necessarily transfer. Finally, application and research agendas demonstrate the importance of responding to actual needs of people and remaining relevant to the civil society that has become transfixed (at least momentarily) by the Geoweb.
Presentation 1: Harris, Trevor. 2008 Participatory GIS and the Geospatial semantic web
Abstract: The Geospatial Web has come alive in the last three years since Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! released their respective Web mapping applications and Virtual Globes and opened up online digital mapping to mainstream Internet users. This growth began with tech savvy users creating their own sites from the ground up using the included Application Programming Interfaces and was quickly followed by several companies, such as Platial, offering user friendly portals that removed the need to program websites. Sites such as Geocommons takes this a step further by offering not only background layers for users to overlay onto their own data, but also a wide array of freely available data that users can mash-up in ways that are more meaningful to them. In the 1990s discussion about Participatory GIS and GIS2 it was argued that the Internet was not likely to provide the core of the next generation PGIS/GIS2. That belief has been under review for several years as the Internet has developed tools that have enabled communities to acquire, map, and share information in ways that facilitate public participation from the global to the local level. Coupled with the extensive and growing social networking environment of Web 2.0 and semantic parsing the use of the Participatory Geoweb is likely to grow still more. This paper explores how the emerging Geospatial Semantic Web can meet some of the fundamental needs of Participatory GIS projects to incorporate local knowledge into GIS, as well as promote public access and collaborative mapping.
Presentation 2: Rahemtulla, Hanif. 2008. A Mobile Spatial Messaging Service for a Grassroots Environmental Network.
Abstract: Strengthening the ability of locally-based initiatives to harness Science and Technology is an essential component of strategies for achieving sustainable development. The current study, conducted by UCL in partnership with London 21, an environmental grassroots network organisation in London, examined the potential of utilising existing mobile technologies to deliver a mobile service to support the goals of the organisation. Using a participatory research approach, an extensive user requirement study was carried out, to ensure the research goals for the development of a mobile service serve the needs and expectations of the host organisation and the other organisations within its network. A Spatial Messaging Service, EcoTEXT, has been developed and deployed for the organisation. This service allows individuals to receive geographically targeted, action-orientated, time-relevant information via text-messages on their mobile phone - information about upcoming local environmental events and activities, which match the interest to the user, when these events occur in close spatial proximity to where that user resides. This type of service represents a powerful new dimension for the provision of data-driven services, in comparison to current text-services, targeting information based on user requirements and interest, relating location to pertinent information giving it additional meaning and value. The introduction of such a service into the organisations range of communication tools offers the potential to create, supplement and strengthen social ties and interactions within the community.
Presentation 3: Burns, Ryan. 2008. Landscapes of Participatory Dialogue: Participation and Geovisualization in Agora Xchange
Abstract: Agora Xchange is an online dialogue-oriented game where all users contribute to the construction of an “ideal” world. In the game forum users discuss what an ideal representation of the world would entail; topics such as political organizations, social inequality, and violence are usually the centerpieces of conversations. The goal is to develop a world without politics-as-usual: a rethinking of traditional institutions.
This project takes from the Agora Xchange game the dialogue in its entirety and calculates a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) of that dialogue. The result is a high-dimensional dataset of discourse that has been reduced to a 2-dimensional map. Geographic principles and the map metaphor have been particularly useful in conceptualizing information spaces, and this project will test those notions for this SOM. For instance, we expect to see which users are “far away” from each other in terms of their dialogue, the “density” of certain concepts, and “peaks” and “valleys” of dialogue.
This project demonstrates an instance where public participation, the Geoweb, and geovisualization intersect. Implications of this intersection should include increased geographic and social understanding, empowerment of the participators, landscapes of dialogue, and highlighted areas of potential Participatory Geoweb research. The final outcome of the project is highly valuable to geography and several of its subfields, but also to participatory practices.
Presentation 4: Kelly, Maggie and Ken'ichi Ueda. 2008. Participatory GIS in Sierra Nevada Forest Adaptive Management: the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project
Abstract: Plans for Adaptive Management of the Sierra Nevada forest ecosystem face challenges common to other multidimensional natural resource management programs in other areas worldwide characterized by natural, social and historical complexity. How can dynamic communities with changing needs, aspirations and technologies maintain a sustainable relationship with the environment that is itself dynamic and constantly changing? Any adaptive process that tackles this challenge will require the sharing and discussion of information about the human and natural components of the system being managed. Developing tools to gather new information, optimize the use of available information, and ensure that all parties can effectively participate in the decision-making process are critical components of a natural resource adaptive management process. Modern tools such as Internet message boarding, Participatory mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been used often separately as information gathering and sharing tools. WebGIS systems, a hybrid of GIS and Internet technologies are a promising option for entering and storing heterogenous datasets, indexed by location, and making them widely available in a visual, dynamic and interactive format, are increasingly used in Participatory projects. This paper presents a case study from the Sierra Nevada forests, and illustrates how webGIS is used in an Adaptive Management process.
Presentation 5: Sieber, R. E. 2008. ParticipatoryGeoweb