Coproduction in the U.S. Department of Defense: Examining How the Evolution of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Expands Non‐Traditional Partner Engagement

Abstract

This study examines interactions between the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and its nontraditional partners. Facilitated by advances in technology hardware and software, the nature of collaboration has changed significantly, shifting from authoritarian to symbiotic relationships. We find that DoD partners have expanded to include geographic information systems (GIS) and information technology professionals, and individual GIS users. As more non-traditional, external partners become involved, the DoD attempts to exert informational power over its partners to assure data integrity and preserve data security. We consider an appropriate role for the DoD in a polycentric regime where public value increasingly is coproduced. This leads us to consider, by analogy, if there are other public policy arenas where data integrity and security concerns will lead to a similar approach.

Crowdsourcing: Citizens as coproducers of public services

“…Table 1 lists studies discussing crowdsourcing and coproduction. Though some studies emphasize that crowdsourcing adopts coproduction as a fundamental theoretical basis (Franklin et al, 2013; Liu, 2017a; Mergel, 2015; Prpić et al, 2015; Royo & Yetano, 2015), other studies adopt crowdsourcing as an illustration of how coproduction can be implemented through the enhancement of technology (Clark et al, 2013; Ebdon & Franklin, 2006; Linders, 2012; Nam, 2012).…”

Exploring the use of crowdsourced geographic information in defence: challenges and opportunities

“…Government departments in charge of defence and national security are, therefore, searching for techniques to improve their data sets, and hence their ability to respond to or even prevent these activities, with up-to-date or even real-time information to obtain a better and faster understanding of critical situations. It is believed that crowdsourcing can be a key to improve defence decisionmaking (Greengard 2011;Parsons 2011;Franklin et al 2013;Shanley et al 2013). This section presents an overview of previous work linking crowdsourcing, VGI and georeferenced social media data with defence cases, organised around some of the tasks relevant to UK defence (see Sect.…”

“…War-fighting preparedness is also the first mission of the United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD), which has long understood the importance of GIS and highly accurate data for use during warfare operations (Franklin et al 2013). Franklin et al (2013) noted that data are now frequently coproduced, involving non-traditional stakeholders (non-DoD GIS professionals, Information Technology professionals and daily GIS users), and three partner types: clients, citizens and volunteers. They also explore the use of volunteered information for military operations and noted that these multiple producers have resulted in the US DoD increasingly facing challenges relating to data integrity and data security.…”

“…The availability of faster data collection methods, in combination with technological advances including Web 2.0, and low-cost tools such as Global Positioning System (GPS) devices and smartphones, enables the public to participate in the data collection process (Goodchild 2007;Girres and Touya 2010;Haklay 2010;Ali and Schmid 2014;Forghani and Delavar 2014;Neis and Zielstra 2014). The involvement of amateurs, individuals and volunteers in crowdsourcing, which was recently described as "a type of participative online activity in which an individual, an institution, a non-profit organisation or a company proposes to a group of individuals of varying knowledge, heterogeneity, and number, via a flexible open call, the voluntary undertaking of a task" (Estellés Arolas and González Ladrón-de-Guevara 2012, p. 197), generates location-based social networking and collaborative mapping (Franklin et al 2013;Shanley et al 2013). This new era, involving a set of geographic information systems (GIS) techniques and tools available to public and non-expert users, is characterised as Neogeography (Haklay et al 2008) Neogeography as a concept appeared in 2006 and is defined by Turner (2006, p.3) as "the sharing of location information with friends and visitors, helping shape context, and conveying understanding through knowledge of place".…”

Structuring Citizen–Government Relationships: Regimes, Regulators, Media, and Citizen Discourse Online

“…The second article, by Aimee L. Franklin, Tara Mott and T. H. Lee Williams (), examines one of the key players in establishing Internet protocols and developing its use as a tool for accessing and analyzing data: the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Here the details of what happens to a major government agency when it becomes both a producer and a consumer of data generated for mapping purposes proves instructive.…”