Increasing Spatial Awareness by Integrating Internet Geographic Information Services (GIServices) with Real Time Wireless Mobile GIS Applications

2. Utilizing Internet Giservices For Collaborative Decision Makings

Internet GIServices are network-based geographic information services which utilize both wired and wireless Internet functionality to access geospatial information, spatial analytical tools, and GIS web services (Tsou, 2009). The GIS community started to research on-line, web-based, and distributed GIServices in the mid-1990s (Gardels, 1996; Plewe, 1997; Tang, 1997, Peng & Tsou, 2003). The development of Internet GIServices was motivated by the adoption of an open and distributed architecture and the re-design of GIS metadata and distributed software component frameworks. Internet GIServices are built upon a distributed computing framework, which is an example of the revolution of information technology -- from traditional architecturally closed and centralized information systems to more open and distributed information service architectures (Tsou & Buttenfield, 2002).