Abstract: Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) defines a practice where GIS technology and methods are used in support of public participation and decision making in a number of domain applications (Sieber, 2000). PPGIS is viewed as a top-down process where a central authority identifies a problem, the stakeholders and the best way to address it (Ghose, 2007). Current advances in the GeoWeb are challenging the top-down purview of PPGIS in that more citizens are directly engaging with tools that enable the collection and communication of place-based knowledge by non-experts. This emerging process raises pertinent questions, including: How is knowledge of place expressed, and to what extent is it relevant to PPGIS? This talk will highlight local research that centered on Edmonton’s river valley trail network where 17 informants were interviewed regarding their knowledge of place, in addition to their collection and communication of place-based information. This research will address the crowdsourcing of such information through the GeoWeb as a means of replacing traditional, authority controlled, PPGIS processes. We will demonstrate that individuals possess a complex, detailed and nuanced understanding of place. And, finally, we will discuss the current limits and future trends of the GeoWeb’s ability to capture that depth of understanding.

1. Public Participation GIS:
From the Desktop to the GeoWeb.
Matthew Dance

2. Purpose
To connect the rich human geography tradition
of place-based enquiry to the emerging
GeoWeb.
1. How is knowledge of place expressed?
2. How is this relevant to PPGIS?

3. Talk Overview
1. Context: Overview 15 years of PPGIS.
2. My MA research: Place based communication
via emerging tech.
3. Bringing these two related themes together.
4. Current and future trends in location based
collaboration.

4. Do you recall…?
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, 1960

5. PPGIS the early years…
A practice where GIS technology and methods
are used in support of public participation and
decision making in a number of domain
applications (Sieber, 2000).
• Top down & authority driven
• NOT collaborative
• Concerned with problems defined by
authorities
• Stakeholders are to be mined for data

6. Diagram of a Collaborative Spatial
Methodology
From Balram and Dragicevic (2006)

7. Mapping, Mashups, and Beyond
Early 2000’s – Basic web maps such as
MapQuest.
2005 – Launch of Google Earth (now at over 1
billion downloads).
2005 + - Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) via
hand held smart phones and the Internet of
Things where inanimate objects talk to each
other (i.e. Air Quality Sensors).

9. What is ‘place’?
Place is defined as being comprised of three
dimensions (after Relph, 1976):
1. Observable activities that occur in relation to
the location;
2. The meanings that are created by a person in
that location, and;
3. The physical features that comprise the
location’s concrete or tangible attributes.

10. Methods
• Qualitative Methodology
• Case Study Method
– Semi-structured interviews (N=17)
• Mental Maps
• Place and space
• The GeoWeb
– Discourse analysis of transcripts
– Primary on-line sources such as Facebook &
Garmin Connect

11. Results: Mental Maps

12. There was a path in the woods there, and we call that
Moonies run because our teacher, Mr. Moonie, lived right
there. My friend played guitar and I played guitar, and we
used to take our amps, carry our amps across back and forth
across the river. At this point here right in the middle of the
bridge was we deemed that as perfectly half way, so we
would say, ‘Okay, I’ll meet you on the bridge’. But yeah, I
spent a lot of time down there, in Gold Bar.
Chris
Results: Nuanced Understanding

13. Results: Data Generation
Web Mobile Data Types
Evan Garmin Connect,
Facebook
Garmin
Forerunner
GPS trace, heart
rate, time, distance,
elevation.
Megan Google Earth Garmin eTrex,
iPhone
GPS trace, video,
photos, GE fly
through visualization
Isabel Google Earth, Map my
run
Garmin
Forerunner
GPS trace, time,
distance
Chris Running map Garmin Forerunner GPS trace, time,
distance
John OSM Garmin eTrex GPS trace, line,
polygons

14. Results: Data Communication
Evan
Garmin Connect:
Facebook:

15. Results Summary
Q1: How is knowledge of place expressed?
1. People have a detailed and nuanced
understanding of place.
2. Current tech does not capture this variation
and nuance.
3. Current tech is good at point-line-polygon-
real-time types of quantitative data.

16. So what?
Q2: How is this relevant to PPGIS?

17. PPGIS is dead…long live PPGIS
Citizen
Participation
Open (geo)
Data
Open Code
GeoWeb
Crowd map
Crisis Maps
Google Maps
ESRI Story Map
Ushahidi
MapBox & TileMill
WAZE
Plan Your Place
OpenStreetMap
Flickr
Twitter
Facebook

18. WAZE
“The point is Waze didn’t just create a static
navigable map, it created a real-time
(crowdsourced) representation of the current
state of roads.”
Via gigaom.com
Google recently bought WAZE for 1 billion USD.

19. Haiti Crisis Map Edits

20. OSM iD Editor

21. CSV>Q>TileMill
Global News
FOIPP CSV
Oil Spill Data
QGIS TileMill

22. MapBox

23. New PPGIS paradigm
Upside
• Bottom up
• User driven
• Define issues
– Who is needed to address
– Best way to address
• Realtime data
• Push notifacations
• Open data / software
• Crowdsourced data and
information
Downside
• Digital divide
• Knowledge of code a +
• Literate
• Access to computers
• Understanding of data
• Still lacking access to
nuanced understanding of
place…..

24. Situating citizens:
Who is a ‘place’ expert?
"Given a large enough beta-tester and co-
developer base, almost every problem will
be characterized quickly and the fix will be
obvious to someone."
Eric Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, 1999

25. Place-based Digital Infrastructure

26. Thank you
Matthew Dance, M.A.
Geographer
@mattdance
matt@matthewdance.ca
780.554.9222