"Part of our Ecosystem"

Directions Magazine's Adena Schutzberg offers a brief editorial this morning on what she calls "a big week for Google Maps news" and what that news might mean for GIS practitioners. She outlines a few practical thoughts on on the news that Google Maps now includes an elevation visualization, collaboration on user-created data, and non-GPS location tools for mobile applications.

She had an interesting side-thought, though, on why it is that GIS pros, with much more powerful GIS tools at their disposal, take notice of these logical next steps for Google:

Google, whether we like it or not, is part of our technology ecosystem. Even if we don't use Google Maps for analysis or Google tools for search, we know ultimately many of our end-users, clients, and citizens do.

That observation matches what several states have shared in recent forums. Google and its several data visualization platforms are becoming another in the several pathways through which we share data with our constituents and partners.

Old Maps in VT and MN Given New Life on the Internet

AP article on the use of digitized historical plat maps in Vermont and Minnesota.

Distributed QA/QC?

The ability for registered users to edit some of the location data in Google Maps is starting to get notice in the media. The Washington Post included a story on the day after Thanksgiving (Google Lets Users Fine-Tune Its Maps). The San Jose Mercury News had the story a few days earlier (Google lets users change maps). And there are others.

The Washington Post version includes a quote from a Google staffer that has a familiar ring:

"We're constantly working to improve the quality and accuracy of the information available in Google Maps," said Google spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz. "Accurate, detailed local information about neighborhoods, towns and the world around us is important to our users, and yet no one knows a town better than the people that live there."

That "no one knows ... better than the people who live there" echoes a theme we've stressed in GIS coordination; the best data comes from the most local sources. That has generally meant state and county data (and some major municipal players) with our challenge being to find ways to aggregate that data at larger and larger geographies.

The idea of having members of the public help edit data is not new, but the fact of Google's large presence in the social networking, "live web" world, may make a difference.

The USGS has its National Map Corps, an attempt to harness the power of interested geo-hobbiests. TeleAtlas and other large geospatial data providers enable their clients to submit suggested corrections. And some states offer channels for citizen corrections. In my own state of Delaware, the DataMIL on-line mapping system includes an invitation to submit error reports.

Google may trump all of these efforts through market penetration, and that's a good thing. More accurate data is an important goal. I'll be interested to see the extent to which this catches on as an on-line activity. And I'm curious to see whether, and how, this corrected data can be
spread back to a variety of data providers and local governments.

If nothing else, though, it is exciting to think about a wide community taking responsibility for where things are.

State Planners Seeking Input On The Florida Geographic Information System

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Division of Emergency Management (DEM); together with a consortium of state, local, federal, academic, and private partners, has begun a strategic planning process to foster statewide coordination of geographic information systems (GIS) activities in Florida, and is seeking the input of the GIS community over the next several months. A survey designed to collect information on organizational needs and experiences with geospatial program coordination can be completed by visiting the project web site at www.floridadisaster.org/gis/capgrant and following the link for the survey. The survey will be available until December 7, 2007. For more information go to: http://www.floridadisaster.org/

How Remote is Your Sensed Data?

Researchers Fabien Girardin and Josep Blat of Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona are doing some interesting geospatial analysis using what is essentially "found" geodata.

In Tracing the Visitor's Eye, Girardin and Blat are using the geotagging of photo locations by tourists in the photo-sharing website flickr to populate spatial analysis models and examine how tourists interact with several major cities.

Flickr allows users to "place" their photos on maps, creating simple geodata that can be viewed and used by other applications (assuming a user has set permissions to "public," as many do). Blat and Girardin are working on several research goals with these data:

• Evaluating the potential of using people-generated geotagged information to contribute urban understanding.
• Studying how people explicitly position and disclose spatio-temporal information in order to understand their use and need of quality of location information in a urban space.

That is, can we use tourist-generated geodata to study cities? And, if so, what are the effects of variation in their dependability as geo-locators?

It is the case that flickr users vary widely in their attention to exactness when mapping their photos. The researchers are working on whether or not that variation in data quality can be overcome in analysis.

If so, there are some interesting possible applications. Urban planners might be able to determine which are the most important view-sheds in an area and which need the most protection. State and national parks managers can study what is most interesting to visitors.

Aside from heat-maps of raw tourist interest, the project includes traces based on temporal data included in the photo metadata. These allow researchers to track where and when visitors are going. That led to an interesting insight into the different approaches taken by foreign and domestic visitors to Italy, as reported in a one-page PDF summary prepared by the researchers:

For instance ... Americans follow a specific graph constituted by the nodes of Florence, Siena, Pisa, Genova and Perugia. By contrast, Italians ... are more adventurous in their exploration of the area (including reporting on visits of the Island of Elba).

If nothing else, this research illustrates the expansion of new and public sources of data and information possible with the spread of open-source tools and applications on-line. And it re-enforces the value that professional GIS folks can bring to the analysis and use of that data.

Mental Note: Review This Before Next PPT Presentation I Make

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Lifehacker has posted the slide show above as part of an on-going effort by conscientious presenters everywhere to "Stop Death by PowerPoint."

NSGIC is an organization that shares information, tools and experiences; often at conferences and usually using PowerPoint. We should bear in mind these lessons from presentation consultant Alexei Kapterev.

Another useful resource, on this subject, is LifeHacker's late September post on creating effective presentations.

A Podcast on NSGIC's National Initiatives

Directions Magazine has released a 20-minute podcast interview of TeleAtlas' John Auble on the subject of national-scale data initiatives such as Imagery for the Nation and Transportation for the Nation.

The podcast serves as something of a catch-up on the NSGIC 2007 Annual Conference, which Directions writers were not able to cover in person.

Auble, a member of the NSGIC Corporate Leadership Council, gave an overview, from his perspective, of the advances made in the last several years towards the goals of the 50 state initiative and more robust local/state/federal/private-sector partnerships.

Study Recommends USGS Research Priorities

The National Academies Press has published a study that makes recommendations to the USGS for future research by the USGS Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (CEGIS).

The study, A Research Agenda for Geographic Information Science at the United States Geological Survey, is by the Mapping Science Committee of the National Research Council.

The study makes 12 recommendations:

1. CEGIS should initially focus on research that will improve the capabilities of The National Map.
2. The three priority research areas for CEGIS should be (1) information access and dissemination, (2) integration of data from multiple sources, and (3) data models and knowledge organization systems.
3. The two priority research topics within the area of information access and dissemination should be to reinvent topographic maps in an electronic environment and to investigate user-centered design for The National Map web services.
4. The two priority research topics for CEGIS within the area of data integration should be generalization and fusion.
5. The two priority research topics in the area of data models and knowledge organization systems should be developing geographic feature ontologies and building the associated feature data models and gazetteers.
   
6. CEGIS should initially comprise six to eight Ph.D.-level scientists working in teams of at least two on the high-priority topics identified in Recommendations 3 to 5. Each team would comprise a mix of USGS scientists and visiting scientists and/or postdoctoral fellow(s) as appropriate to the topic. Their location should not be constrained to USGS facilities if the most efficient progress could be made in another setting (e.g., an academic center of excellence).
7. CEGIS should establish and/or support one to two centers of excellence in GIScience at universities with relevant GIScience focus and capabilities that address its longer-term research challenges.
   
8. CEGIS should supplement the work of its core research teams with Broad Area Announcements, Cooperative Research and Development Act agreements, and targeted contracts on high-priority research topics.
   
9. To reestablish USGS’s leadership role in GIScience, maximize efficiency, and share in the cost of addressing common challenges, CEGIS should forge connections with other federal agencies, professional societies, and private-sector firms that conduct, support, and/or promote GIScience research.
10. Because of USGS’s core role in integrating data from local sources for The National Map, CEGIS should establish collaborative activities with state and local agencies that have progressive activities in GIScience.
11. CEGIS should use specialist meetings, perhaps in conjunction with the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science winter meeting or summer assembly, to advance its state of knowledge and plans for addressing emerging research challenges.
12. To provide broad-based input, review, and critique of CEGIS plans, activities, and progress and to institutionalize CEGIS’s connection to the USGS disciplines, the National Geospatial Program Office should establish an advisory board for CEGIS that includes members from each of the USGS disciplines as well as non-USGS GIScience experts.
    

The study is available for sale on the National Academies Press website. An Executive Summary (PDF) is available for free download.

NSGIC Presents 2007 Outstanding Service Awards

Six leaders in the geospatial community were awarded NSGIC Outstanding Service Awards (PDF) for 2007 at the annual NSGIC conference in Madison, Wisconsin, in September. NSGIC also debuted a new and special award at the Madison conference.

NSGIC Past President Stu Davis (Ohio) gave awards to:

• David Brotzman (Vermont)
• Will Craig (Minnesota)
• Kenny Miller (Maryland)
• Miki Schmidt (NOAA)
• Anne Hale Miglarese (Fugro EarthData)
• Fred Stringfellow (NSGIC)

The Outstanding Service Award recognizes long-term service to NSGIC and is presented to those who have advanced the National Spatial Data Infrastructure and promoted NSGIC’s goal of efficient and effective government through prudent implementation of geospatial technologies. It is one of NSGIC’s highest service awards.

The first instance of a new award, the Dedicated Service Award, was presented to the family of the late Carol Brandt (U.S. Department of Transportation), in recognition of her devoted lifetime of service.

Bringing Technology (and Geography) to the Census

This is a small portion of a scanned Popular Sciences magazine article from June, 1940 about that year's decennial Census.

The article is titled "Uncle Sam Counts Noses", and subtitled "How Amazing Machines Help Take Census." It is found on a neat blog called Modern Mechanix ("Yesterday's Tomorrow, Today") which presents "future"-ist articles from old magazines.

This article tracks the advanced machinery used by the Census Bureau to make the 1940 Census work:

Now begins the stupendous task of refining this mountain of data, and totting up the figures in some forty closely printed volumes of significant findings. Clerks doing it by hand would scarcely finish the job by the time for a new census. But ultramodern machinery—applying the punched-card system devised by Herman Hollerith, a former census man—has streamlined the undertaking.

There follows a brief explanation of how punch-card data management worked.

Among the photos used to illustrate the article was this small image of a pair of geographers with the caption:

Geographers mapping an enumeration district. There are some 143,000 of these areas, and careful planning guards against overlapping.

This is essentially the same task that many in the state and county GIS communities face over the next few years as we help make preparations for the 2010 Census and for the growing American Community Survey.