The open black box: the role of the end‐user in GIS integration

Poore, Barbara S.

doi:10.1111/1541-0064.02e13

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(41 reference statements)

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“…To see how local watershed users became essential contributors to the regional SDI, the author followed a worker from the Cedar River Watershed outside Seattle as she collected data on the watershed, used online tools to integrate the data into the regional database, and worked with colleagues to make corrections and additions. The observations that follow were derived from this participant observation and from interviews in the Cedar River watershed and elsewhere in the region in the early 2000s (8).…”

Section: Articulating Local Knowledge-users As Contributors To Spatiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Users as essential contributors to spatial cyberinfrastructures

Poore

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Current accounts of spatial cyberinfrastructure development tend to overemphasize technologies to the neglect of critical social and cultural issues on which adoption depends. Spatial cyberinfrastructures will have a higher chance of success if users of many types, including nonprofessionals, are made central to the development process. Recent studies in the history of infrastructures reveal key turning points and issues that should be considered in the development of spatial cyberinfrastructure projects. These studies highlight the importance of adopting qualitative research methods to learn how users work with data and digital tools, and how user communities form. The author's empirical research on data sharing networks in the Pacific Northwest salmon crisis at the turn of the 21st century demonstrates that ordinary citizens can contribute critical local knowledge to global databases and should be considered in the design and construction of spatial cyberinfrastructures.C yberinfrastructure (CI) will simultaneously transform the technical tools and the social arrangements of contemporary scientific work according to the Atkins Report (1) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Following the models of modern biological or climate change research, many sciences will become datadriven, relying on high-performance computing grids capable of processing, analyzing, storing, and indexing enormous datasets. Cross-disciplinary collaboration among teams of geographically dispersed researchers will become more prevalent. Spatial cyberinfrastructure (spatial CI) or CyberGIS, as the similar research trend in geographic information science (GIScience) is alternately referred to, combines the tools and computing technologies of CI with the power of spatial analysis to address complex environmental and social issues such as climate change, disaster response, transportation planning, and national security. Although the use of CI in GIScience is relatively recent, there is an important tradition of spatial data infrastructure research that emphasizes the social aspects of online data sharing and interoperability among data communities. In addition, the recent efflorescence of Internet mapping by private companies, mapping agencies, and ordinary citizens, commonly referred to as the geospatial web (2) can be a resource for GIscientists as they undertake the development of spatial CIs. Spatial CIs can contribute new insights to the more general CI effort by promoting research on the social and organizational aspects of infrastructure development and by demonstrating the important role that ordinary citizens might play in CI.To date, writings on technical and social transformations projected to result from CI and spatial CI efforts have focused on professional scientists. Both the way scientists work and how they interact with others are expected to change. Crossdisciplinary collaborations will become the norm and they will require new technologies to support interactive virtual environments, shared analytical tools, and in sili...

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Section: Articulating Local Knowledge-users As Contributors To Spatiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These traditions include a long history of research on social aspects of data integration (7), spatial data infrastructures (8,9), public participation GIS (10), spatial data decision support systems (11), and volunteered geographic information (12). How do we find and engage the ordinary nontechnical users who are potential citizen scientists (13)?…”

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confidence: 99%

Users as essential contributors to spatial cyberinfrastructures

Poore

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Data integration is a key concept and is frequently used to designate the process of bringing together disparate data through the merging, joining and appending of datasets (Poore, 2003). Data synthesis describes the creation of new knowledge achieved through the process of higher-level abstraction.…”

Section: In Translation: Metadata and Interoperabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling long-term oceanographic research: Changing data practices, information management strategies and informatics

Baker

Chandler

2008

Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography

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Interdisciplinary global ocean science requires new ways of thinking about data and data management. With new data policies and growing technological capabilities, datasets of increasing variety and complexity are being made available digitally and data management is coming to be recognized as an integral part of scientific research. To meet the changing expectations of scientists collecting data and of data reuse by others, collaborative strategies involving diverse teams of information professionals are developing. These changes are stimulating the growth of information infrastructures that support multi-scale sampling, data repositories, and data integration. Two examples of oceanographic projects incorporating data management in partnership with science programs are discussed: the Palmer Station Long-Term Ecological Research program (Palmer LTER) and the United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (US JGOFS). Lessons learned from a decade of data management within these communities provide an experience base from which to develop information management strategies -short-term and long-term. Ocean Informatics provides one example of a conceptual framework for managing the complexities inherent to sharing oceanographic data. Elements are introduced that address the economies-of-scale and the complexities-of-scale pertinent to a broader vision of information management and scientific research.Keywords: Data collections, Data management, Informatics, Information centers, Information systems, Oceanographic data IntroductionInterdisciplinary global ocean science requires new ways of thinking about data and data management. This paper is about informatics and information environments providing an organizational structure for information management in collaboration with scientific research. The experience of two oceanographic projects integrating data management with their respective science programs is described below. With data systems and partnerships evolving rapidly, the goal of this paper is to review current approaches and issues at hand in order to open up discussion on the future of data arrangements: sustainable repositories and networked systems, information management strategies and the role of local information environments. This lays a foundation for imagining an information model large enough to encompass a whole earth ecosystem -an infrastructure greater than the sum of its parts, incorporating the dynamics of environmental, human and information systems.Data and data practices are central to scientific research. Gold (2007aGold ( , 2007b summarized recently: "To be able to exchange data, communicate it, mine it, reuse it, and review it is essential to scientific productivity, collaboration, and to discovery itself." Taking a step back from the local laboratory, field programs, and data collections, we catch a glimpse of a complex system with multiple components including a web of communities intertwined with networks of data systems. This system co-evolves with a variety of partnerships to be...

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“…Like participatory research, PPGIS incorporates end users, research subjects, and researchers into a collaborative environment (MacEachren, 2000) where GIS are structured under the guidance of both the expert and the novice. One intended result is GIS appropriate to the needs and uses of a given community, with specific attention to the cultural underpinnings of that community (Poore, 2003) and a raised level of empowerment for the community taking part (Tulloch, 2007).…”

Section: Public Participatory Gismentioning

confidence: 99%

Public participatory GIS in community-based disaster risk reduction

Kemp

2008

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Natural hazards, such as earthquakes and floods, result in disasters for several reasons. One of the important factors is reducing risk before an incident arises. Such efforts are commonly termed disaster risk reduction (DRR Introducing PPGIS tools into community-based DRR is not a neutral effort. The information and communication technologies (ICT) embedded in GIS can both aid the DRR efforts as well as impact the community in unintended ways. ICTs may be common in communities engaged in DRR efforts so the introduction of PPGIS may have minimal impact. What are the societal ramifications, however, of PPGIS methods in DRR efforts when ICTs are a relatively new aspect of a given community? What are the communication methods pertinent to PPGIS in the DRR context? How does the ICT literature address PPGIS methods? The paper addresses these and other influences of ICT on societies prone to natural hazards.Keywords: PPGIS, natural hazards, disaster risk reduction, information organization Acknowledgement: Generous thanks to the anonymous review and helpful feedback from the ICT&S Doctoral Students" Meeting colleagues.he numbers of people impacted by natural hazards is showing an upward trend. More people are displaced and put into health risk from floods, earthquakes, and drought. Humanitarian actors seek to reduce these risks through development strategies and community-based exercises to assess disaster risk. A key input to these exercises is accurate and extensive information from which communities might make decisions, changes, and plans for moving forward.

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The open black box: the role of the end‐user in GIS integration

Cited by 18 publications

References 34 publications

Users as essential contributors to spatial cyberinfrastructures

Users as essential contributors to spatial cyberinfrastructures

Enabling long-term oceanographic research: Changing data practices, information management strategies and informatics

Public participatory GIS in community-based disaster risk reduction

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