Collaborative Research: A GIScience Approach for Assessing the Quality, Potential Applications, and Impact of Volunteered Geographic Information

该项目的动机是致力于收集用户自愿提供的地理信息的网站的数量和规模迅速扩大。这种自愿提供地理信息(VGI)的现象是一种更普遍的用户生成内容趋势的一部分，这种趋势是由一套技术(大致称为Web 2.0)推动的。VGI对GIScience研究提出了重大的新挑战，现有的理论和实践几乎完全面向更传统形式的空间数据。然而，到目前为止，还没有对这一现象引发的科学和社会问题进行严格的研究。人们很少知道人们为什么提供信息，他们产生的信息的准确性或质量，合成或分析这些数据的适当方法，所谓的“数字鸿沟”可能如何运作，以阻止一些人提供VGI，或者这种现象可能如何影响隐私和保密。加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的古德查尔德教授、华盛顿大学的埃尔伍德教授和德克萨斯农工大学的苏教授将进行一项为期3年的研究，通过三个主要目标扩大对VGI的基础知识。首先，PIS将对现有的VGI工作进行全面清查，并将使用这些网站的样本来评估VGI的质量和准确性。第二，PIS将使用相同的VGI来源子集评估VGI的方法要求，评估现有技术的适当性，如空间数据挖掘和其他用于分析大量空间数据的方法。第三，督导人员将以定性和个案为基础，研究VGI的社会层面和影响，从应急管理和社区发展的应用中收集调查和访谈数据，这两个领域预计VGI将是有益的。最后，为了补充这些基础和应用研究活动，私人投资促进机构将建立和促进对VGI进行研究的学者网络，以支持他们的研究活动、结果、方法和课程创新的汇编和交流。这项研究对科学和社会做出了几项重要贡献。它将确定激励和限制人们贡献VGI的因素，开发和评估VGI的合成和评估质量和准确性的技术，并调查VGI对隐私、机密性和不平等获取数字信息和技术的影响。VGI被认为具有巨大的社会效益，例如，通过从公民那里及时提供关于自然灾害影响的信息或疾病暴发的早期预警。这项研究计划将通过发展关于如何获取、合成和重新分配这种新形式的地理信息以及如何评估和确保其质量的基本和应用知识，为实现这一潜力做出关键贡献。地理信息是从地球物理学到人类学的科学基础设施的重要组成部分，因此VGI将以新颖和重要的方式影响科学。更广泛地说，VGI需要公众以人类历史上前所未有的水平参与地理信息和知识的生产--有可能有60亿或更多的人担任信息生产者。VGI代表着与过去几个世纪主导地理信息生产的自上而下范例的根本背离。该项目产生了科学家、教育工作者、政策制定者和公民以富有成效的方式参与这一深刻转变所需的理论、方法和应用知识。

This project is motivated by the rapid expansion in the number and size of websites devoted to gathering geographic information supplied on a voluntary basis by users. This phenomenon of volunteered geographic information (VGI) is part of a more general trend of user-generated content facilitated by a suite of technologies loosely known as Web 2.0. VGI presents significant new challenges for GIScience research, where existing theory and practices are geared almost exclusively toward more conventional forms of spatial data. Yet to date there exist no rigorous studies investigating the scientific and societal questions raised by this phenomenon. Little is known about why people contribute information, the accuracy or quality of what they produce, appropriate methods for synthesizing or analyzing these data, how the so-called "digital divide" may operate to inhibit some people from contributing VGI, or how this phenomenon may impact privacy and confidentiality. Professors Goodchild (UC Santa Barbara), Elwood (University of Washington) and Sui (Texas A&M) will conduct a 3-year study that will expand basic knowledge about VGI via three overarching objectives. First, the PIs will conduct a comprehensive inventory of existing VGI efforts, and will assess the quality and accuracy of VGI using a sample of these websites. Second, the PIs will evaluate the methodological requirements of VGI with this same subset of VGI sources, evaluating the appropriateness of existing techniques such as spatial data mining and other approaches for analyzing large volumes of spatial data. Third, the PIs will study the social dimensions and impacts of VGI using a qualitative and case-based approach, collecting survey and interview data from applications in emergency management and community development, two important arenas in which VGI is predicted to be beneficial. Finally, to complement these basic and applied research activities, the PIs will establish and facilitate a network of scholars conducting research on VGI, to support compilation and exchange of their research activities, findings, methods, and curricular innovations. This study makes several important contributions to science and society. It will identify factors that motivate and constrain people from contributing VGI, develop and evaluate techniques for synthesizing and assessing the quality and accuracy of VGI, and investigate the implications of VGI for privacy, confidentiality, and unequal access to digital information and technologies. VGI is thought to have tremendous societal benefits, for example by providing timely information from citizens about the impacts of a natural disaster or early warning of disease outbreaks. This research initiative will make a pivotal contribution toward realizing this potential, by developing basic and applied knowledge about how this new form of geographic information may be acquired, synthesized, and redistributed, and about how its quality may be assessed and assured. Geographic information is a substantial part of the infrastructure of sciences ranging from geophysics to anthropology, so VGI will impact science in novel and important ways. More broadly, VGI entails public participation in the production of geographic information and knowledge at an unprecedented level in human history - potentially six billion or more people could serve as information producers. VGI represents a radical departure from the top-down paradigm that has dominated the production of geographic information for the past few centuries. This project generates theoretical, methodological, and applied knowledge necessary for scientists, educators, policy makers, and citizens to engage this profound transition in productive ways.