Theory and application in a post-GISystems world

This perspectives paper uses the seminal Goodchild (1992) article as a lens through which to review and reflect upon several longstanding issues that have influenced the field of geographic information science in the past and will continue to be important at least into the next decade. Under the category of theory, the continuing issue of "tool versus science” now has implications for the defining of geographic information systems (GISs) as a profession. In turn, a brief perspective is offered on how GIS has contributed to "methodological versus substantive" questions in science, leading to understandings of how the Earth works versus how the Earth should look. Both understandings of the Earth are particularly germane to the emergence of tools and applications such as marine and coastal GIS, virtual globes, spatial cyberinfrastructure, and the ethics of GIS. And in the realm of marine and coastal GIS, the example of multidimensional data structuring and scaling is used to highlight an underlying lesson of Goodchild (1992) in that theory and application are in no way mutually exclusive, and it may often be application that advances theory, rather than vice versa. Indeed, it may be this reversal that is ushering in a "post-GISystems" world, where GIS is subsumed into a broader framework known simply as "the web," divorced from the desktop, but providing a new paradigm for GIS (aligned with the “fourth paradigm” of Hey et al. 2009). As so much data and information will be collected spatially in a way not possible before (e.g., the “big data” of global observational science), GIS will need to be both system and science to support the turn toward more place-based research across increasing scientific domains. GIS is needed also by society at large to guide understanding of the longstanding fundamentals of geolocation, scale, proximity, distance decay, the neighborhood, the region, the territory, and more.This is the author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Taylor & Francis and can be found at: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tgis20/current.Keywords: Goodchild, Strategic directions, Domain sciences, Geographic information scienc

Operating anew: Queering GIS with good enough software [pre-print]

In the last decade, conversations around queering of GIScience emerged. Drawing on literature from feminist and queer critical GIS, with special attention to the under‐examined political economy of GIS, I suggest that the critical project of queering all of GIS, both GIScience and GISystems, requires not just recognition of the labour and lives of queers and research in geographies of sexualities. Based upon a queer feminist political economic critique and evidenced in my teaching critical GIS at two elite liberal arts colleges, I argue that the “status quo” between ESRI and geography as a field must be interrupted. Extending a critical GIS focus beyond data structures and data ethics, I argue that geographic researchers and instructors have a responsibility in queering our choice and production of software, algorithms, and code alike. I call this production and choice of democratic, accessible, and useful software by, for, and about the needs of its users, good enough software

Iz časopisa

From the field of cartography and geoinformation, there are journal’s article extracts given which are not cartographic first and whose complete texts are on the Internet, accessible to the members of Croatian academic and research community. Most journals can be accessed through the PERO browser (http://knjiznica.irb.hr/pero/index.php). For the journals not found through this browser, the complete texts of the mentioned articles are available for free on the given web-address. Next to every jo­urnal headline, in the brackets, it is noted which prominent bibliographic and quotation bases it is placed in: CC (Current Contents), SCIE (Science Citati­­on Index Expanded), and SSCI (Social Sc­­­i­ence Citation Index). It should be noted that, for some journals accessible through PERO browser, there is a delay of 6, 12 and even 18 months in accessing the newest issues. This number is given in the brackets next to the journal’s headline.Dan je izbor članaka iz područja kartografije i geoinformacija iz časopisa, koji nisu u prvom redu kartografski, a kojima su cjeloviti tekstovi dostupni na internetu članovima hrvatske akademske i istraživačke zajednice. Većina časopisa dostupna je preko pretraživača PERO (http:// knjiznica.irb.hr/pero/index.php). Za časopise koji nisu dostupni preko tog pretraživača cjeloviti tekstovi navedenih članaka slobodno su pristupačni na upisanoj web-adresi. Uz svaki je časopis u zagradi naznačeno u koje je ugledne bibliografske i citatne baze uvršten: CC (Current Contents), SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded), SSCI (Social Science Citation Index). Treba naglasiti da za neke časopise, dostupne preko pretraživača PERO, postoji odgoda pristupa najnovijim brojevima od 6, 12, a ponekad i 18 mjeseci. Taj broj je naveden u zagradi uz naslov časopisa

계량혁명과 GIS혁명 사이에서: 공간데이터분석-중심의 지리정보과학을 지향하며

This review paper is based on an observation that there exists a generation gap between the quantitative and GIS revolutions, even though paradigmatic homology of spatial science is often presumed and cross-fertilization is straightforwardly promised. It is argued that each revolution needs to be edified to establish an integrative, sustainable research framework: SDA needs to become more accessible, applicable, and GIS-friendly; GIS needs to migrate from GISystems to GIScience to place conceptual and analytical aspects of handling geographic information on its center. An SDA rendered more GIS-friendly can be seen as an SDA-centered GIScience. A SAM-based ESDA-GIS Framework is proposed to demonstrate the viability of the SDA-centered GIScience. Within the framework, local SAMs (spatial association measures) and associated ESDA techniques are expected to allow researchers to effectively investigate spatial dependence and heterogeneity.이 리뷰 논문은 계량혁명과 GIS혁명의 관계에 대한 사람들의 일반적인 생각, 즉 두 혁명은 공간과학이라는 동일한 패러다임에 기반하고 있고 상호융합은 매우 자명한 것이라는 생각이 잘못되었다는 점에 착안하고 있다. 본 논문은 진정으로 통합된 지속가능한 연구들이 정립되기 dln해서는 두 혁명 각각이 새로운 지향점을 향해 변모되어야만 한다고 주장한다. 즉, 공간데이터분석(SDA)은 좀 더 접근가능하고 좀 더 적용가능한 방향으로 지향될 필요가 있고, GIS는 체계(system)로서가 아닌 과학(science)으로서의 성격을 강화함으로써 기술적인 측면을 벗어나 지리정보를 다루는 과정에서 발생하는 개념적이고 분석적인 측면에 집중할 필요가 있다. 이러한 관점에서, GIS 환경하에서 보다 GIS-친화적인 공간데이터분석을 수행하는 것을 '공간데이터분석-중심의 지리정보과학(SDA-centered GIScience)'이라 규정할 수 있다. 제시된 공간적 연관 측정치(SAM)에 기반한 ESDA-GIS 연구를(SAM-based ESDA-GIS gramework)'은 공간데이터분석-중심의 지리정보과학의 힐생가능성을 논증하고 있다. 그 연구들 속에서 연구자는 국지적 통계치를 이용한 다양한 ESDA 방법들을 이용함으로써 공간적 의존성과 공간적 이질성을 효과적으로 탐색할 수 있게 된다

Region-based Dynamic Weighting Probabilistic Geocoding

Geocoding has been a widely used technology in daily life and scientific research for at least four decades. Especially in scientific research, geocoding has been used as a generator of spatial data for further analysis. These uses have made it extremely important that geocoding results be as accurate as possible. Existing global-weighting approaches to geocoding assume spatial stationarity of addressing systems and address data characteristic distributions across space, resulting in heuristics and approaches that apply global parameters to produce geocodes for addresses in all regions. However, different regions in the United States (US) have different values and densities of address attributes, which increases the error of standard algorithms that assume global parameters and calculation weights. Region-based dynamic weighting can be used in probabilistic geocoding approaches to stabilize and reduce incorrect match probability assignments that are due to place-specific naming conventions which vary region-to-region across the US. This study tested the spatial accuracy and time efficiency of a region-based dynamic weighting probabilistic geocoding system, as compared to a set of manually corrected geocoding results within Los Angeles City. The results of this study show that the region-based dynamic weighting probabilistic method improves the spatial accuracy of geocoding results and has a moderate influence on the time efficiency of the geocoding system

Exploring scientific collaborations in geographical information science (GIScience): A study of its co-authorship networks

Geographic Information Science (GIScience) as a discipline focuses on fundamental issues surrounding Geographic Information (Gl) and developments and applications of Geographical Information Technologies (GITechnologies). GIScience has accumulated a body of knowledge that can be easily exported and applied to other disciplines and assembled a wider multidisciplinary research community. Co-authorship networks are used to explore GIScience scientific collaborations during 1992-2002. Six different co-authorship networks were built from publication outlets comprising different sets of core and peripheral journals. The closer the periphery to the core, the more relevant the selected journals are to GIScience. Topological characteristics of all networks show similar networks despite the differences in sizes and the nature of the topics covered. However, networks with the peripheral journals closer to the core were more centralized around well-known scholars within the discipline. Furthermore, the network structures show a GIScience core linked to allied disciplines, especially to a highly clustered remote sensing research community. The core co-authorship network was geo-referenced using authors’ affiliation information. The results show that geographical proximity, language and cultural preferences play important roles. Countries known for their strong publishing patterns in other sciences such as England, USA and Canada were alos identified within GIScience domain. A growth of international collaboration among Scandinavian and European Countries was revealed. Results also show that China, India and Brazil have been increasing their international participation within the GIScience research community

An Agent-Based Variogram Modeller: Investigating Intelligent, Distributed-Component Geographical Information Systems

Geo-Information Science (GIScience) is the field of study that addresses substantive questions concerning the handling, analysis and visualisation of spatial data. Geo- Information Systems (GIS), including software, data acquisition and organisational arrangements, are the key technologies underpinning GIScience. A GIS is normally tailored to the service it is supposed to perform. However, there is often the need to do a function that might not be supported by the GIS tool being used. The normal solution in these circumstances is to go out and look for another tool that can do the service, and often an expert to use that tool. This is expensive, time consuming and certainly stressful to the geographical data analyses. On the other hand, GIS is often used in conjunction with other technologies to form a geocomputational environment. One of the complex tools in geocomputation is geostatistics. One of its functions is to provide the means to determine the extent of spatial dependencies within geographical data and processes. Spatial datasets are often large and complex. Currently Agent system are being integrated into GIS to offer flexibility and allow better data analysis. The theis will look into the current application of Agents in within the GIS community, determine if they are used to representing data, process or act a service. The thesis looks into proving the applicability of an agent-oriented paradigm as a service based GIS, having the possibility of providing greater interoperability and reducing resource requirements (human and tools). In particular, analysis was undertaken to determine the need to introduce enhanced features to agents, in order to maximise their effectiveness in GIS. This was achieved by addressing the software agent complexity in design and implementation for the GIS environment and by suggesting possible solutions to encountered problems. The software agent characteristics and features (which include the dynamic binding of plans to software agents in order to tackle the levels of complexity and range of contexts) were examined, as well as discussing current GIScience and the applications of agent technology to GIS, agents as entities, objects and processes. These concepts and their functionalities to GIS are then analysed and discussed. The extent of agent functionality, analysis of the gaps and the use these technologies to express a distributed service providing an agent-based GIS framework is then presented. Thus, a general agent-based framework for GIS and a novel agent-based architecture for a specific part of GIS, the variogram, to examine the applicability of the agent- oriented paradigm to GIS, was devised. An examination of the current mechanisms for constructing variograms, underlying processes and functions was undertaken, then these processes were embedded into a novel agent architecture for GIS. Once the successful software agent implementation had been achieved, the corresponding tool was tested and validated - internally for code errors and externally to determine its functional requirements and whether it enhances the GIS process of dealing with data. Thereafter, its compared with other known service based GIS agents and its advantages and disadvantages analysed

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A STUDY OF PROVISION, PEDAGOGY AND EMPLOYABILITY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND TURKEY

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are computer-based systems designed to store, organize, analyse and present spatial data. They can be used to help understand and answer a wide variety of problems in fields such as environmental management, resource planning and retail location and development. This thesis aims to explore the GIS education provided within university Geography departments (or units) in both the UK and Turkey. The main topics for investigation are the nature and scale of the GIS provision, the principal characteristic of the teaching, learning and assessment processes and also graduate employability – how far the courses and their students satisfied employer needs. Although there is a substantial literature on GIS education, this thesis is different for two reasons. First, because it takes a more holistic approach to examining many aspects of GIS education within a number of case study departments. Second, because it covers two different countries, which can then be compared. With reference to the research methods, this PhD examined ten case study departments, six from the UK and four from Turkey. The data collected were derived from a combination of student questionnaires, staff interviews, teaching observations and reading course documents. Both qualitative and quantitative were used to examine the data. In the UK the main types of provision were found to be some 90 GIS named modules within Geography undergraduate programmes, 22 GIS Masters degrees and 7 UG GIS programmes. In Turkey, where engineering is the leading GIS discipline, there were 61 modules in undergraduate Geography, two Geography-based Masters programmes and no GIS undergraduate degrees. In the UK the great majority of GIS II provision in Geography degrees takes the form of modules which are optional, with the result that most Geographers obtain only a very limited understanding of GIS and its applications. By contrast, in Turkey, the GIS modules are typically compulsory and the subject therefore occupies a more central and prominent position in the curriculum. In both countries, more than 70 percent of students said they were satisfied with their GIS teaching (with no statistically difference in satisfaction levels related to the gender or year of study). Although this is a positive finding, there were some weakness and disappointments. With respect to curriculum design and delivery, insufficient attention was given to use of Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) and in both countries students complained about too much theory and about teaching which was too heavily based on lectures and not sufficiently active and student centred (especially in Turkey). GIS staff rarely took part in teaching related CPD and GIS was little used outside the formally designated modules. GIS employer opinions were varied on the quality of graduates but common criticisms were that they lacked the business awareness and in Turkey had often poor standards of English. The links between academia and the GIS profession were patchy. The thesis ends with over 20 recommendations, the most important of which is for Geography as a discipline to give more priority to GIS. Particularly in the UK (though less so in Turkey), many Geographers graduate with little knowledge or experience of GIS. In the age of the information economy, this is a significant missed opportunity.The Higher Education Council of Turkey (HECoT