In his 2015 paper, Shaowen Wang outlines the current state go CyberGIS as a growing ‘interdisciplinary field’ that hopes to enable widespread cooperation on geospatial research by creating a framework which integrates all sorts of data processing techniques from a number of ‘research domains’ and allows for real-time high volume, multi-user work by taking advantage of modern day networking technologies such as cloud computing, multi-core processing on an unprecedented scale and remote work.
At first, CyberGIS felt like a catch-all umbrella term with little purpose to me, a buzzword that packaged old concepts in a new way. Following Wang’s article however, I am convinced of the relevance of CyberGIS and the exciting possibilities it offers, particularly with regard to scaleability and the democratization of computer processing power. Our in-class discussion of the paradigms which narrow our understanding of GIScience (e.g. attention to ‘maps’ over all other forms of data presentation) informed my reflection on Wang’s review of the existing status quo in research: ‘sequential computing’, ‘monolithic architecture’ and other concepts which we take for granted when we engage with online work.
CyberGIS has the potential to become an uprecedented force for radical change in academic research. The notion that a researcher defaults to working alone from a modest work station, carefully guarding the fruit of their research and selectively collaborating through individualized in-person or online communication could soon be overhauled. The barriers to research inherent in the limited access to powerful computers could potentially be broken down by a combination of cloud computing, easier collaboration and delegation of tasks, and real-time remote access to more computers/better facilities. This has enormous implications for the democratization of GIScience which go hand in hand with the tenets of the open source movement. Together, CyberGIS and open-source approaches to software development could certainly change the nature of resource accessibility in academia, providing opportunities for better collaboration and less elitism in GIScience. In my opinion, GIScience continues to suffer from high barriers to entry on both a physical and intellectual front, and it is high time for a fresh approach. CyberGIS might just be it.
-KH