Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
2.3 Web 2.0 & GIS Infrastructure & Services
A critical element of the geodeliberation framework is interpersonal communi-
cation. This is a central tenet of Web 2.0, together with interoperable datasets,
freely available spatial data access tools and application programming interfaces
for integrating the communication, data and tools (Hall et al.
2010
).
A spatial framework is valuable for underpinning discussion both for Web 2.0
applications and for geocollaboration and geodeliberation. Whether that is to
provide spatial context for the users' comments or to spatially reference the users
themselves. Web 2.0 map APIs have been widely used to display and augment GIS
data on the internet for PPGIS tasks (Ganapati
2011
), interactive environmental
planning (Ghaemi et al.
2009
) and geodeliberation (Cai and Yu
2009
).
The typical architecture for web mapping applications (for either PPGIS or
geodeliberation) is a database server (for maintaining discussions), a map server
and/or spatial database server for providing spatial content (e.g. ArcGIS
geodatabases, map tiles or Google Maps
TM
), a web server for hosting the appli-
cation, and a series of clients (e.g. web browsers) for interacting with the appli-
cation (Rinner et al.
2008
; Cai and Yu
2009
; Ghaemi et al.
2009
).
2.4 Accessing & Mapping Social Networking Data
Students are generally familiar with online mapping environments and social
networks. The availability of online map and data services (e.g. Google Maps
TM
,
Yahoo Maps
TM
, Microsoft Bing
TM
and Esri
ArcGIS
Server or ArcGIS
Online)
and the growth in social networking such as blogs, micro-blogs (e.g. Twitter posts
and Facebook status updates) and online forums has created virtual worlds where
place often forms part of the discussions. Subsequently students are comfortable
with the concept of social network location sharing; providing spatial context for
their activities and defining their online presence (Gibin et al.
2008
).
Since its creation in 2006, Twitter has become a hugely popular online social
networking tool where users post tweets of up to 140 characters in a similar
fashion to SMS messaging (Honeycutt and Herring
2009
). It was originally based
around a simple concept asking users to post tweets to their profile with ''what are
they doing?'' later re-phrased as ''What's happening?''. This change reflected a
change in usage of Twitter as a tool to comment on issues instead of discussing the
individual's actions. The spatial representation of tweets had been largely over-
looked and the only visible spatial expression was in an individual's profile
(Honeycutt and Herring
2009
; Field and O'Brien
2010a
). In addition to using the
location of tweets as a proxy for a tweeter's location, there remains a range of
potential ways in which the spatial expression can be enhanced and utilized
beyond simple depiction on a map.
