[OSGeo-Discuss] summary of VGI workshop in Santa Barbara Dec 13-14, 2007

[P Kishor]

Greetings,

I posted my brief summary of the recently held VGI workshop on the
geowanking list, and am reposting it here as well. I hope you find
this useful --

Workshop on Volunteered Geographic Information
Dec 13-14, 2007
Upham Hotel, Santa Barbara, CA

Approximately 30 participants. The participant list and contributed
issues papers are available at
http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/projects/vgi/participants.html

Presentations ranged from smart sensors for solving global problems
(think cell phones that transmit geocoded ambient information, digital
traces that we leave everywhere we go such a while swiping a subway
card, crossing a traffic light, working at a wifi hotspot, or talking
on the cellphone  [1] to GPS units that can be extended with low-cost
measurement devices: for example, GPS that not only records water
locations, but also measures water quality [2]) to VGI from the
grassroots where citizens contribute and fill in the gaps that the
government can't or won't [3]. OpenStreetMap was presented as a
specific case of organized VGI [4] to personalized driving routes [5]
VGI implies connectivity.

Waldseemüller map was shown as one of the first documented examples of
VGI. In today's world, while a formal naming process for placenames
exists, technology makes it possible to have multiple names for a
single location. VGI itself is described by many different terms:
user-generated content/collective intellegence/crowdsourcing/asserted
information. Whatever it is called, it leads to empowerment of
millions who are untrained and have no authority otherwise. VGI leads
to non-uniform coverage as only "interesting" places tend to get
covered, and depends on web search engines to allow us to find it.
There are three types of sensors: inert or fixed; carried on moving
objects; and human beings. A key trait of VGI is that humans act as
sensors. This is really "citizen science" in action, and some of its
examples are the Christmas bird count and Project GLOBE. Some possible
research questions to consider are: Why do people do this? Is it
self-promotion (exhibitionism, retaining "ownership" of contributed
data); altruism; a desire to fill gaps in the available data; or
sharing with friends? Studying the range of authority and assertion,
the potential for subversion of information, and the review process
which may or may not be localized [6].

Almost 80% of all decisions are based on spatial information. Like in
any decision-making, information loops exist in geographic information
based decision-making as well. Characterizing VGI quality:
completeness, consistency. Notions of place, discovering VGI,
integrating VGI and GI, grounding semantics, modeling trust and
reputation, liability. Metaphors for web interaction, incentives,
social semiosis with VGI. Scaling the loops: from geeks to everybody,
from GPS tracks and images to rich data and services, from
disconnected loops to interfaced loops, from a few big social networks
to many small ones [7].

There is room for both VGI and authoritative GI, for different
purposes as well as to validate the former against the latter. One way
to think about it is that VGI is "action driven" while GI is "process
driven." VGI is basically observational assertions and metadata about
such assertions are very important  [8]. I offered Amazon's "Real
Name" feature as an example of metadata about assertors. ESRI also
demonstrated their distributed GIS platform that allows loosely
coupled authors and users, mashups, and use of standard APIs with
ArcGIS as a system for authoring, serving and using VGI/AGI. ArcGIS
server has a crawl-able, KML-tagged "Services Explorer" [9] Jack
summarized with his observations on the entire workshop. He commented
on GIS and VGI relationship — how can GIS users use VGI data? How does
GIS support VGI? Does VGI have the promise of SDI? How can we mine VGI
data for experts use? VGI benefits greatly from GIS concepts — spatial
referencing system, visualization and query tools, web servers and
services, shared data bases. What would GIS professionals say about
VGI? Well, a good basemap is important, data models are important,
standard workflows to create, maintain, edit and manage data are
important, good geographic data requires a lot of work, spatial
analysis modeling requires consistent data models, VGI observation
data and assertions are valuable but how do we organize and integrate?
(Spatial data mining, ETL) Six types of geographic knowledge: geog
data, data models, geoprocessing models, geospatial workflows,
metadata, maps and visualization. Distinction between amateur and
professional systems: LA street lights, NESA street lights (Denmark,
allows neighbors to dim their street lights), DHS security, NYC 311,
BLM surveys, WWF Forest Watch.

Google asserted that we are sitting on the long tail of geographic
data (breadth: how many places we know; depth: how much do we know
about each of those places). Google has counted seven million "My
Maps" instances, 300 million Google Earth activations, more than
50,000 API sites, and estimates 1000 human lifetimes spent looking at
satellite photos. They call this the emergence of a geoweb, and are
working on creating a new geoweb search [10].
National Geographic is geoenabling its content. They demonstrated Meta
Lens, a web based platform for managing geo-enabled content and talked
about LandScope America (to be launched in 11 months) in partnership
with NatureServe. NG believes that while we are in great shape as far
as imagery is concerned, the GIS data are spotty albeit very rich. It
needs to be better supported and aggregated. While GIS data are in a
pretty good shape at small scales and getting better at very large
scales, VGI might help fill in the "gap in the map" in between small
and very large scales [11].

Harvard is embarking on creating an "Africa Map," a one-stop shopping
for Africa continent base maps, online atlas and index, a gateway to
more specific data searches across multiple systems, search
non-spatial visual data, and a repository for Africa research
projects. There is a lot of data on Africa, but not many know about
it. Africa has been mapped by colonial powers for over a hundred
years. Most of the continent is LandSat (not very good imagery).
Russians have the best mapping of Africa. [12]

Don Cooke observed that users of geographic information are two orders
of magnitude greater after Google Earth than before [13].

I gave a presentation on the Science Commons Open Data Mark. Last
Thursday this was still an "upcoming data mark" which became official
three days later! Some of you may know that I have been involved in
this initiative since May's Brazil workshop on open access and the
subsequent follow-up in Paris in September. The Paris workshop was
really where most of the ideas of the Data Mark were crystallized, so
I have been able to develop a presentation that I am going around
giving wherever I can. I will continue to refine that presentation and
offer it online sometime soon.

Some of the many, many Research Questions: what are the researchable
questions? What disciplines should be involved? What are the roles of
the academies, private sector, agencies, public? What is the legal
status/ownership of VGI? What points of view are missing? What
activities might maintain this momentum? What might be done to
publish, reach wider audiences?

The findings of the workshop will be published. The final outlet is
not determined, but it might be a special issue of a suitable journal
such as the Journal of SDI Research (IJSDIR) or the GeoJournal.

[1] Sarah Williams. Spatial Information Design Laboratory, Columbia University
[2] Rajan Gupta. Los Alamos National Labs
[3] Sarah Elwood. University of Washington; David Tulloch. Rutgers
University; Morgan Bearden. The National Map, USGS
[4] Steve Coast. OpenStreetMap
[5] John Krumm. Microsoft.
[6] Mike Goodchild. Spatial at UCSB
[7] Werner Kuhn. University of Muenster
[8] Jack Dangermond. ESRI
[9] David Maguire. ESRI
[10] Lior Ron. Google
[11] Allen Carroll. National Geographic
[12] Ben Lewis. Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis
[13] Don Cooke. TeleAtlas