Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Since the localized gazetteer is intended to be the information engine for
the assistive process, its construction required unique tailoring. Well-
known gazetteers such as the U.S. Geographic Names Information System
(GNIS) from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assign to a geographic
feature its official name, including variants or former names, with geo-
graphic reference data (Hill 2006). Geographic features can be classified in
notional groups or given additional designations or textual descriptions,
such as historical site (which might refer to a feature that is no longer in
existence), as is performed in the Geographic Names Project from USGS.
For this localized gazetteer to optimize its benefits to assistive geotech-
ways that a feature might be orally or verbally expressed. This structure
robustly connects a name to its geo-referenced location.
Sources of naming alternatives come from the members of the local popu-
lation themselves. George Mason University (GMU) is a linguistically
diverse campus, attracting faculty and students from over 130 nations.
From the 2009 GMU student body of 32,500 total students, 1700 are from
outside the United States with only 80 of these from native English speak-
ing countries. The largest non-English single language student population
is Chinese, numbering 283 students (GMU 2010). The faculty is linguisti-
cally diverse as well, with over 9% of the 5300 staff and faculty from other
countries. Large numbers of American students and faculty are non-native
English speakers. Local demographics indicate that as many as 35% of the
American students would speak Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi
or another as their first language (US Census Bureau 2010).
Students, both English- and non-native English-speakers were queried
about common vernacular usage. Foreign students and faculty provided
cultural and linguistic perspectives on the placenames used to refer to loca-
tions around campus. One cross-cultural observation was the widespread
use of a building's English name even in discussions held in languages
other than English. This was less common in discussions about areas that
were functionally described, like parking lots. These student and faculty
inputs augmented naming data from other more official sources, such as
university campus facility mapping products, university offices' web-
listings, and the campus telephone book. Some limited site surveys con-
firmed these official sources.
University locations and the means to identify them follow both a geo-
graphic and a functional hierarchy. As an example shown in
Figure 3
,
