Research Report:
Online Community Mapping: Theory and Praxis
1. Abstract
Chang et al. attempt to make the case for the creation of an “online community mapping” application. Online community mapping is a framework arising from the combined realms of social computing, open-source programming, and geographical information systems (GIS). The basic concept is that real-world locations will have corresponding URLs to which anyone can add annotations just as comments can be added to a blog; these are all to be organized via open-source tools so that they are easily accessible to anyone and can be administered by anyone.
2. Description
The proposal is written by six researchers based (at the time) at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Information Science. It is an interdisciplinary proposal, as the authors come from such fields as computer science, ethnology, and geoinformatics. The position paper, completed in 2006, begins with a foundational background on social computing and online mapping, specifically highlighting the increasing attention these were getting at the time by pointing out that map searches had recently become a “top activity” in the US (sec. 1). While a variety of mapping or geospatial information is sought after, it is also pointed out that most of the map data comes from authorities, that is, from governments and organizations in fixed and predetermined forms.
Against this established paradigm are posited the growing approaches known as Public Participation GIS and Community-Integrated GIS. These participatory GIS approaches are designed with the community in mind, with the idea that “using maps, geographic information, and information technology can lead to more informed decision-making, improved planning processes, as well as local project opportunities” (sec. 3). Such an approach makes collaborative mapping into an activity that can help build communities and provide for individual expression.
The authors then distinguish between the participatory GIS approach and their proposed approach, “online community mapping.” In the former, the community is the focus; the map is merely a paratext to the community. With online community mapping, however, the map is the focus of the project; all data leads back to and augments the map. They identify several fledgling projects that might fit into this category, although they note that the emphases of each can be differentiated into online community, online mapping, and community mapping.
They argue for the formation of a true online community mapping application. This would start with more accessible data sets, including terrain and political maps as well as demographic information, that also include metadata on how to make the data meaningful. The application itself would need to be based in a commonly-used source language, such as the Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) or proposed Geography Markup Language (GML), both based on XML. It would also use open-source tools for hosting and distribution of the application, perhaps taking cues from blogs and wikis.
The impetus behind this proposal is twofold. On one hand, the authors believe that the hierarchical control of GIS and related data is an outmoded paradigm, and that the model represented by social or collaborative computing offers greater flexibility and accessibility. On the other, they also posit that (geo)spatialization of data similarly offers great flexibility in the handling of data that might be collected and used by the practitioners of social and collaborative computing.
3. Commentary
Online community mapping is a concept whose time has definitely come. For everyone from academics to hobbyists, the idea of creating a map with interactive annotations is at the fore. The concepts put forward by Chang et al. provide both the reasoning and the impetus for a project like the one I am undertaking. As they put it: “In our vision, it [the internet] can aggregate everything via the unique PlaceID even for a building, a lab, or the chair you are sitting on” (sec. 8). While including the chair in such a map might be a bit extreme, what they imply in the “aggregate everything” phrase is that all the information associated with a PlaceID (a particular spot on the map) can be linked (literally, via the internet) to that PlaceID. This is what I would like to see realized with the Second Life map: that any event, group, blog entry, postcard, etc. associated with a location can be linked to the map in order to allow for new ways of understanding the data.
One of the limitations to such a project is the potentially huge amount of data to be linked to the map. This is what makes the “community” portion of the “online community mapping” so important. As pointed out in the Cameron Shorter article on community bicycle mapping, the efforts of volunteers from the community make the data collection much more efficient. Accuracy in such a system might also pose a problem, especially in the real world. However, in Second Life the system always knows the in-world location of an avatar or any object, making geospatial accuracy a non-issue.
The authors bring up the interesting point that “online community mapping” tends to break down into online community, online mapping, or community mapping. Unfortunately, these terms are left without explicit definitions, but in context they seem clear enough. This limitation might be endemic to any such project; although visitors in my own plan would be “mapping” items as they add annotations, it seems to me that technically it would devolve into an online-community project at core, since the map itself is always already completed and thus no “mapping” is actually required. This alone brings up some interesting ideas, such as what the Second Life experience might be like without a map.
4. Resources for Further Study
Chang, Chin-Lung, et al. “The Web and Collaborative Geospatial Mapping: A Position Paper.” Technical report, 12 Sep. 2006. Academia Sinica Institute of Information Science, Taipei. 13 Feb. 2008 <http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/papers/trc/3811-A.pdf>.
Other links of interest:
http://www.platial.com
http://www.geowiki.co.uk/
http://lila.ucla.edu
http://bloghud.com
http://www.upmystreet.com
http://www.esri.com/industries/k-12/atlas/
http://www.frappr.com
http://www.carto.net
http://www.webmapper.net
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