Collaborative Mapping and GIS: An Alternative Geographic Information Framework

Introduction

Since the Enlightenment, mapping and the production of geographic information have been institutionalised: the map is the power. At home, maps were used as an instrument for nation building as nation states emerged: a legitimisation device (McHaffie, 1995). People learned about their country and administrations needed a tool to govern the territory. Away from home, maps were an instrument for colonisation, when Africa and Asia were split among the European nation-states.

During the last few decades, there has been rapid democratisation of geographic information and maps. Sawicki and Craig (1996) distinguish three ways in which this movement is apparent. First, the locus of computing power and data access is broadening. Second, the level of skills to turn raw geospatial data into geographic information has become less demanding. Third, the locus of applications has moved closer to the citizenry. Geographic information systems moved from mainframes and the UNIX operating system onto personal computers and the Windows operating system. From research and government, GIS spread into the business sector. The PARC Xerox Map Server and Virtual Tourist brought maps to everyone’s PC in the late 1990s, followed by online map Web sites such as MapQuest and Multimap. In 1997, Brandon Plewe noted that “the Internet holds promise for exponential increases in the efficiency and effectiveness of the ways in which we obtain, use and share geographic information in all its forms” (Plewe, 1997). In July 2002, 7.1 million European users visited one of the many online map Web sites (Nielsen//NetRatings, 2002). Google Maps, introduced in February 2005, reached almost 1.7 million visitors in that month (Buchwalter, 2005).

Although maps are more widely used than ever, the production of geographic information, and especially mapping, is still highly concentrated among national mapping agencies and the GI industry. But this oligarchy is soon to be dissolved, for we see the third aspect of the democratisation of geographic information–the locus of applications moving closer to the citizenry–becomes apparent now that location-aware mobile devices are coming within everyone’s reach. GPS units are not only available to surveyors anymore, as cheaper devices are sold for outdoor recreation. Also, small GPS antennae can communicate with other devices over Bluetooth, and there are already mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) for the consumer market that have GPS-chips built in.

At the same time, digital maps have become portable. Various mobile phone operators have started to deliver location-based services to mobile devices. Mobile phones come with route planning applications, thus making in-car navigation systems redundant. Maps are not only delivered to the desktop, but also to mobile phones and PDAs, requiring new visualisations as the screen size, resolution, and use patterns differ significantly.

Collaborative mapping is an initiative to collectively create models of real-world locations online that anyone can access and use to virtually annotate locations in space (McClellan, 2003). The value of the annotations is determined by physical and social proximity, the former expressed in distance, the latter in “degrees of separation.” Thus, the informational value and the pertinence of spatial annotations is not only dependent on physical distance, but also dependent on the trust relationship between individuals or groups of people through social networks: the “Web of Trust” (Espinoza, Persson, Sandin, Nystrom, Cacciatore, & Bylund, 2001).