Workshop on Access and Participatory Approaches Associated with the Use of Geographic Information, Rome, Italy, Fall 2001

In the Fall of 2001, a workshop with participation by United States and European researchers was held in Spoleto, Italy to assess the current state of research on access to geographic information and on geographic access theory, to evaluate the impact of evolving policy and legal trends in the U.S. and Europe on access to scientific and technical data generally and geographic data specifically, to assess the current state of research on participatory approaches surrounding the use of geographic information, to explore commonalities and differences in U.S. and European directions of research within these arenas, and to develop a joint U.S./European research agenda on geographic information access and participatory issues

Liability for Spatial Data Quality

Liability in data, products, and services related to geographic information systems, spatial data infrastructure, location based services and web mapping services, is complicated by the complexities and uncertainties in liability for information system products and services generally, as well as by legal theory uncertainties surrounding liability for maps. Each application of geospatial technologies to a specific use may require integration of different types of data from multiple sources, assessment of attributes, adherence to accuracy and fitness-for-use requirements, and selection from among different analytical processing methods. All of these actions may be fraught with possible misjudgments and errors. A variety of software programs may be run against a single geographic database, while a wide range of users may have very different use objectives. The complexity of the legal questions surrounding liability for geospatial data, combined with the diversity of problems to which geospatial data and technologies may be applied and the continually changing technological environment, have created un-settling and often unclear concerns over liability for geospatial technology development and use. This article selects a single data quality issue to illustrate that liability expo-sure. In regard to that issue, it may have a substantial stifling effect on the widespread use of web-based geospatial technologies for such purposes as geographic data mining and interoperable web mapping services. The article concludes with a recommendation for a potential web-wide community solution for substantially reducing the liability exposure of geospatial technology and geographic data producers and users

Dissertation Research: The Impact of Law and Information Policy on the Dissemination and Commercialization of Spatial Databases: A North American -European Community

SBR-9506485 This dissertation-improvement award supports a study into the ways that government scientific-and-technical-information policies affect the dissemination of databases containing spatial data, specifically, transfer and use of the data generated by national mapping agencies to the research community and the commercial information industry. The study will take the form of parallel case studies, with information collected via postal surveys, in-person interviews, and archival research. Spatial-data suppliers and users in Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States will be investigated, to allow for international comparisons. The results of the research will be of interest to the government, research, and commercial communities of the countries studied, as they grapple with substantial international differences in spatial data policy

Conflicts in the Use of Geographic Information

The use of geographic information technologies is pervasive throughout business, government, industry and the scientific community in the United States. Conflicts are arising on a daily basis for those using geographic information systems and their affiliated databases, for those implementing such systems, and for those designing the next generations of spatial information technologies. Balancing among competing interests and resolving conflicts involved in the use of these technologies are growing problems for numerous parties within society. Among the problem domains of greatest concern are those involving personal information privacy, intellectual property rights in geographic information, liability in the use of geographic data sets, public access to government geographic data sets, public goods aspects of geographic information in libraries, and sales of geographic information by government agencies. This research involves a pilot study that will evidence the extent to which conflicts are perceived to exist by those using and creating geographic information systems and by those who are the subjects contained within such systems. Researchers will develop and pilot web-based questionnaires to determine whether and to what extent interest and value choices differ among sampled groups of system developers, users, and data subjects within each of the major problem domains. Where significant differences are evidenced as existing among affected parties, researchers will develop conflict scenarios patterned after experiences witnessed in practice. The full range of geographic information conflict issues within each of the major problem domains will be fully explored and documented. The scenarios and the problems drawn from practice will set the methodological and substantive stage for follow on research in which potential solutions may be sought. Eventually, preferences for resolving specific conflicts will be determined and guiding principles will be suggested. Gathered data and scenarios developed during the pilot, as well as suggested principles to be developed and explored in future research, will form the foundation for broad-ranging moral and ethical discussions within the geographic information science community

UCGIS Summer Assembly and Retreat: Support for Graduate Student Travel

SBR-9617695 This award supports the provision of small travel grants to graduate students from U.S. institutions to assist their attendance and participation in the 1997 Annual Assembly of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science. Students to be so supported will be selected on the basis of a panel review of their 2000-word abstracts of the presentations they plan to make at the assembly. Grants will not be made to students based within 250 miles of the assembly (to be held in Maine). The assembly has two components: the exchange of research findings and progress among researchers and students (their presentations are to be integrated within sessions), and the identification of priorities for education (primarily college and graduate) in the interdisciplinary field of geographic information science. This small award fulfills two major goals of NSF: the development and dissemination of improved tools for scientific analysis, and the integration of research and education

Towards Voluntary Interoperable Open Access Licenses for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)

Access to earth observation data has become critically important for the wellbeing of society. A major impediment to achieving widespread sharing of earth observation data is lack of an operational web-wide system that is transparent and consistent in allowing users to legally access and use the earth observations of others without seeking permission from data contributors or investigating terms of usage on a case-by-case basis. This article explores approaches to supplying a license-based system to overcome this impediment in the context of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. It discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the explored approaches and suggests an integrated legal and technological approach for supplying an effective web-wide sharing environment for earth observation data

Big Opportunities in Access to Small Science Data

A distributed infrastructure that would enable those who wish to do so to contribute their scientific or technical data to a universal digital commons could allow such data to be more readily preserved and accessible among disciplinary domains. Five critical issues that must be addressed in developing an efficient and effective data commons infrastructure are described. We conclude that creation of a distributed infrastructure meeting the critical criteria and deployable throughout the networked university library community is practically achievable

Land Information Systems in Developing Countries: Bibliography (94-3)

Bibliography of literature on land information systems and cadastral systems in developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America

Towards Voluntary Interoperable Open Access Licenses for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)

Access to earth observation data has become critically important for the wellbeing of society. A major impediment to achieving widespread sharing of earth ob-servation data is lack of an operational web-wide system that is transparent and consistent in allowing users to legally access and use the earth observations of others without seeking permission from data contributors or investigating terms of usage on a case-by-case basis. This article explores approaches to supplying a license-based system to overcome this impediment in the context of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. It discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the explored approaches and suggests an integrated legal and technological approach for supplying an effective web-wide sharing environment for earth observation data