From: Britta Ricker [mailto:noreply@...]
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 1:55 PM
To: Mukila Maitha
Subject: [GI Science & Systems]: Call for Papers - Citizen Data at a Crossroads: How should Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) be conceptualized?
From:
To:
Posted:
Subject:
Message:
-------------------------------------------Citizen Data at a Crossroads: How should Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) be conceptualized?
Call for Papers to the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting
9-13 April 2012 Los Angeles, CA
Organizers:
Jon Cinnamon, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University
Britta Ricker, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University
Despite being a relatively new phenomenon without a widely accepted definition, volunteered geographic information (VGI) is commonly conceptualized - following Web 2.0 ideals - as geographic information created by distributed citizens interacting with geospatial technologies on a conscious and voluntary basis without oversight or the use of formalized data collection frameworks (see Elwood et al., 2012; Haklay et al., 2010). This image of VGI has garnered appreciable attention from the GIScience community due to the appeal of a more open and equitable data source in comparison with traditional forms of geographic information. Despite this value however, this purely grassroots 'gold standard' ideal for VGI may restrict its use for scientific inquiry or decision-making purposes. An emerging sub-literature is exploring the value in broadening this conceptualization, includingfacilitated VGI (Cinnamon & Schuurman, 2012; Seeger, 2008), harvested or ambient geospatial information(Stefanidis et al., 2011), involuntary geographic information (Fischer, 2012), and hybrid authoritative/asserted data collection (Connors et al., 2012; Goodchild, 2009). This session will explore the tensions between a purely grassroots ideal of VGI/citizen data, versus the potential presented by broader conceptualizations.
Potential topics for this session include, but are not limited to the following:
- The benefits and drawbacks of current conceptualizations of VGI.
- The potential effects of expanding our conceptualizations of 'volunteered' data.
- Emerging approaches: facilitated VGI; hybrid (asserted/authoritative) data; involuntary/ambient geographic information, etc.
- Building approaches as part of a larger 'user-generated geographic information' (UGGI).
- Challenges: data ownership, citizen volunteer recruitment, ethical concerns, etc.
In this session we invite participants to share their experiences and ideas concerning the theoretical and practical implications of an expanded conceptualization of VGI and related citizen data efforts. If you are interested in participating in this session, please send your proposed paper title and AAG abstracts (250 words) to Jonathan Cinnamon jca80@... or Britta Ricker bricker@... by September 14. This session will be part of #GEO/CODE 2013: Geoweb, Big Data and Society organized by the new mappings collaboratory.
-------------------------------------------
Britta Ricker
Simon Fraser University
bricker@...
-------------------------------------------
