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

这个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）的现象是用户生成内容的更普遍趋势的一部分，这种趋势由一套统称为Web 2.0的技术促进。VGI对地理信息科学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的空间数据形式。然而到目前为止，还没有严谨的研究调查这一现象所引起的科学和社会问题。人们为什么提供信息，他们所提供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”如何运作以阻止一些人提供VGI，或者这种现象如何影响隐私和机密性，这些都知之甚少。Goodchild教授（加州大学圣巴巴拉分校）、Elwood教授（华盛顿大学）和Sui教授（德克萨斯农工大学）将开展一项为期3年的研究，通过三个总体目标扩展关于VGI的基本知识。首先，pi将对现有的VGI工作进行全面的盘点，并使用这些网站的样本来评估VGI的质量和准确性。其次，pi将用相同的VGI来源子集评估VGI的方法要求，评估现有技术（如空间数据挖掘和其他分析大量空间数据的方法）的适当性。第三，pi将采用定性和基于案例的方法研究志愿gi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，预计志愿gi将在这两个重要领域受益。最后，为了补充这些基础和应用研究活动，pi将建立和促进一个学者进行VGI研究的网络，以支持他们的研究活动、发现、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，开发和评估合成和评估VGI质量和准确性的技术，并调查VGI对隐私、保密性和数字信息和技术不平等获取的影响。VGI被认为具有巨大的社会效益，例如，它可以及时提供公民关于自然灾害影响的信息或疾病爆发的早期预警。这项研究计划将对实现这一潜力作出关键贡献，通过发展关于如何获取、合成和重新分发这种新形式的地理信息以及如何评估和保证其质量的基础和应用知识。地理信息是从地球物理学到人类学等科学基础设施的重要组成部分，因此VGI将以新颖而重要的方式影响科学。更广泛地说，地理地理标志要求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——可能有60亿或更多的人可以成为信息生产者。VGI代表了对过去几个世纪以来主导地理信息生产的自上而下模式的彻底背离。该项目为科学家、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的转变提供了必要的理论、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.