We are experiencing a massive explosion of online geospatial data from many new and unconventional sources from mobile devices to crowd-sourcing tools. Combined with newly released public sector information, we desperately need to integrate our tools for unlocking, exploiting, understanding and sharing these new data sets so that users can be provided with an accessible gateway to their display, mapping and spatial analysis. Funded by JISC, GEMMA aims to produce a single workflow for the collection, mapping, preservation, sharing and visualisation of the geospatial datasets.
The Aim of GEMMA
What does that mean in short? The ability to create a map without knowing anything about mapping. Simple as, for too long creating a map has been too complicated, there is now a vast amount of geographically tagged information available online, yet to map it you still have to have a considerable amount of computer related knowledge. Not any more, and we are not talking standard pin type maps, we will enable complex spatial mapping to be carried out at the click of mouse and a point at a file.
This is what geospatial mapping should be, GEMMA aims to bring 'geo' to the masses and not in a 'neogeo' type way, simply find some data, make, mix and display a map, that's GEMMA in a nutshell.
With applications as wide ranging as community participation, social simulation, economic analysis, urban modelling and beyond, the collection, visualisation, analysis and ultimately understanding of these datasets requires new software organised around a new series of workflows which integrate an array of tools.
Over the next 8 months we aim to produce a one stop shop for any user who wishes to take public sector, crowd-sourced, mobile and related online data with geospatial reference which enables them to display and overlay this information in non-proprietary or freely available mapping services on the web such as Google Maps or Open Street Map, building on several tools that CASA has developed such as, MapTube and SurveyMapper.
What to Expect?
In typical CASA style, we will have frequent updates, beta releases and online apps. GEMMA will be integrated with various crowd sourced and open data sources complete with both iPhone and Android applications for viewing and collecting data in the field.
GEMMA kicks off March 1st, 2011, its time to make geo easy....
BBC Look East is calling for people in the East of England to find out their home broadband speed, as part of the TV programme's week-long special - using our free SurveyMapper tool, at CASA, University College London, to collate and map the results in real time. So far over 6500 responses have been received.
It is estimated only 60% of households in the region have access to high speed broadband.
Look East's business reporter Richard Bond said that the figure was unlikely to grow much in the next five years.
Home broadband users can take part by plotting their speed onto an interactive map.
The results of the research will then be shown on BBC One during Look East's broadband week, which runs from 21 to 25 February 2011.
"Fibre optic networks, the key to a fast service, are only available to people in and around the major towns and cities," said Mr Bond.
"Broadband speeds in rural areas are slow because they depend on copper telephone exchanges.
"Although BT is rolling out its fibre optic network, this is unlikely to make much of a difference to most rural communities over the next five years," he added.
As broadband speeds on the same connection can fluctuate, it is recommended that people take the test several times and make a note of the highest speed.
Other speed-testing websites could return different results, so it is recommended for this research that third-party sites are avoided.
Once a figure is obtained, people can then plot their results on the BBC Look East map hosted on our SurveyMapper.
It is nice to see maps and indeed crowd sourced surveys used in such a way, SurveyMapper has been developed as part of NeISS (National e-Infrastructure for Social Simulation, funded by JISC as part of its Information Environment Programme.
You can set up your own survey or poll on SurveyMapper - If you have used other ‘polling sites’ then you will be up to speed, except we have taken away the restrictions and added real-time mapping into the mix. Simply sign up (its free) and then your be able to create your own survey and embed it into your own site. Currently we have five levels of survey available - Worldwide, based on countries, European Countries US Zip Code, UK Postcode and a Drag and Drop Pin Map.
You can ask anything, survey the nation, the world or just your street with real-time mapping and statistics.
To take part or create your own survey head over to SurveyMapper.com
The Look East survey runs until February 25th with updates each evening on BBC Look East News.
Over the past few months we have been working with colleagues here at CASA, University College London and at the University of Nottingham, in association with the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to write a report on Data mash-ups and the future of mapping. We are pleased to say the report has just been released and is available to download.
Report by Suchith Anand, Michael Batty, Andrew Crooks, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Mike Jackson, Richard Milton, Jeremy Morley
Traditional, resource intensive processes and established organizations, in both the public and private sectors, were being challenged by new, lightweight methods. The upshot has been that map making, geospatial analysis and related activities are undergoing a process of profound change. New players have entered established markets and disrupted routes to knowledge and, as we have already seen with Web 2.0, newly empowered amateurs are part of these processes. Volunteers are quite literally grabbing a GPS unit and hitting the streets of their local town to help create crowdsourced datasets that are uploaded to both open source and proprietary databases.
The upshot is an evolving landscape which Tim O'Reilly, proponent of Web 2.0 and always ready with a handy moniker, has labelled Where 2.0. Others prefer the GeoWeb, Spatial Data Infrastructure, Location Infrastructure, or perhaps just location based services. Whatever one might call it, there are a number of reasons why its development should be of interest to those in higher and further education. Firstly, since a person's location is such a profound unit of information and of such value to, for example, the process of targeting advertising, there has been considerable investment in Web 2.0-style services that make use of it. Understanding these developments may provide useful insights for how other forms of data might be used. Secondly, education, particularly research, is beginning to realize the huge potential of the data mash-up concept. As Government, too, begins to get involved, it is likely that education will be expected to take advantage of, and indeed come to relish, the new opportunities for working with data.
This TechWatch report describes the context for the changes that are taking place and explains why the education community needs to understand the issues around how to open up data, how to create mash-ups that do not compromise accuracy and quality and how to deal with issues such as privacy and working with commercial and non-profit third parties. It also shows how data mash-ups in education and research are part of an emerging, richer information environment with greater integration of mobile applications, sensor platforms, e-science, mixed reality, and semantic, machine-computable data and speculates on how this is likely to develop in the future.
Last week we announced that the beta release of SurveyMapper, our free real-time geographic survey and polling tool is now live. As is traditional with our roll-outs it now has its own 55 second trailer:
If you have used other ‘polling sites’ then you will be up to speed, except we have taken away the restrictions and added real-time mapping into the mix. Simply sign up (its free) and then your be able to create your own survey. Currently we have four levels of survey available - Worldwide, based on countries, European Countries and UK Counties/Authorities and Postcode.
Head over to SurveyMapper.com to create your own survey or answer the surveys already running.
"The authors describe how we are harnessing the power of web 2.0 technologies to create new approaches to collecting, mapping, and sharing geocoded data. The authors begin with GMapCreator that lets users fashion new maps using Google Maps as a base. Click the right arrow to turn the page:
The authors then describe MapTube that enables users to archive maps and demonstrate how it can be used in a variety of contexts to share map information, to put existing maps into a form that can be shared, and to create new maps from the bottom-up using a combination of crowdcasting, crowdsourcing, and traditional broadcasting. The authors conclude by arguing that such tools are helping to define a neogeography that is essentially ‘‘mapping for the masses,’’ while noting that there are many issues of quality, accuracy, copyright, and trust that will influence the impact of these tools on map-based communication."
Web 2.0, specifically The Cloud, GeoWeb and Wikitecture are revolutionising the way in which we present, share and analyse geographic data. In this paper we outline and provide working examples a suite of tools which are detailed below, aimed at developing new applications of GIS and related technologies. GeoVUE is one of seven nodes in the National Centre for e-Social Science whose mission it is to develop web-based technologies for the social and geographical sciences. The Node, based at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London has developed a suite of free software allowing quick and easy visualisation of geographic data in systems such as Google Maps, Google Earth, Crysis and Second Life.
We are trying out the service by Issuu to share and view our documents online, if it works well then the digital urban booklet will go online next week (click the right button to turn the page):
These tools address two issues, firstly that spatial data is still inherently difficult to share and visualise for the non-GIS trained academic or professional and secondly that a geographic data social network has the potential to dramatically open up data sources for both the public and professional geographer. With our applications of GMap Creator, and MapTube to name but two, we detail ways to intelligently visualise and share spatial data. This paper concludes with detailing usage and outreach as well as an insight into how such tools are already providing a significant impact to the outreach of geographic information.
We are currently writing a technical report on all things geographic and coming to write the term 'Neogeography' has to be honest become painful. Sure, we have written many papers and book chapters on the topic but perhaps its one to lay to rest as we try to explain below...
The ability to mine data via new emerging methodologies for the collection, analysis and leverage of spatially related information is gathering pace and entering the main stream of social science. The key to this is three fold, firstly the move of information into the digital domain with datasets previously limited to corporations or local government organizations becoming available online, this is a recent trend. Secondly the rise of Neogeography, volunteered geographic information, crowd sourcing and citizen science above and beyond the traditional geographic domain. Thirdly the development of new toolkits that take advantage of various application programming interfaces (API’s) to allow non-programmers to quickly and easily mix, match and visualize datasets which would of previously been prohibitively technical. Such activites as a whole can be defined as Neogeography, the term derives from Eisnor (2006) one of the founders of www.platial.com where she defines it (Neogeography) as ‘…a diverse set of practices that operate outside, or alongside, or in a manner of, the practices of professional geographers.
Rather than making claims on scientific standards, methodologies of Neogeography tend towards intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic, but may just be idiosyncratic applications of ‘real’ geographic techniques. This is not to say that these practices are of no use to the cartographic/geographic sciences, but they just usually do not conform the protocols of professional practice’. We see this as key to the renaissance of geographic information, the term Neogeography is perhaps of its time, in a similar manner that ‘Cyberspace’ is now rarely used. The importance is the trend towards the intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic use of data without worrying, or indeed caring, about standards. A term to replace Neogeography? Perhaps there is not a need for one, its all about visualising spatial data, is there a need for a term that distinguishes between the professional and the non-professional, we would argue not.
Neogeography was 2006-2009, perhaps its time to leave it there.
"NeoGeography has been defined as a blurring of the distinctions between producer, communicator and consumer of geographic information. The relationship between professional and amateur varies across disciplines. The subject matter of geography is familiar to everyone, and the acquisition and compilation of geographic data have become vastly easier as technology has advanced. The authority of traditional mapping agencies can be attributed to their specifications, production mechanisms and programs for quality control. Very different mechanisms work to ensure the quality of data volunteered by amateurs. Academic geographers are concerned with the extraction of knowledge from geographic data using a combination of analytic tools and accumulated theory. The definition of NeoGeography implies a misunderstanding of this role of the professional, but English lacks a basis for a better term. "
"The majority of the world's citizens now live in cities. Although urban planning can thus be thought of as a field with significant ramifications on the human condition, many practitioners feel that it has reached the crossroads in thought leadership between traditional practice and a new, more participatory and open approach. Conventional ways to engage people in participatory planning exercises are limited in reach and scope. At the same time, socio-cultural trends and technology innovation offer opportunities to re-think the status quo in urban planning. NeoGeography introduces tools and services that allow non-geographers to use advanced geographical information systems. Similarly, is there a potential for the emergence of a neo-planning paradigm in which urban planning is carried out through active civic engagement aided by Web 2.0 and new media technologies thus redefining the role of practicing planners? This paper traces a number of evolving links between urban planning, NeoGeography and information and communication technology. Two significant trends - participation and visualisation - with direct implications for urban planning are discussed. Combining advanced participation and visualisation features, the popular virtual reality environment Second Life is then introduced as a test bed to explore a planning workshop and an integrated software event framework to assist narrative generation. We discuss an approach to harness and analyse narratives using virtual reality logging to make transparent how users understand and interpret proposed urban designs".
While the third paper is by myself, Andrew Crooks, Maurizio Gibin; Richard Milton; and Michael Batty entitled "NeoGeography and Web 2.0: concepts, tools and applications" in which we explore the concepts and applications of Web 2.0 through the new media of NeoGeography and its impact on how we collect, interact and search for spatial information. We argue that location and space are becoming increasingly important in the information technology revolution. To this end, we present a series of software tools which we have designed to facilitate the non-expert user to develop online visualisations which are essentially map-based. These are based on Google Map Creator, which can produce any number of thematic maps which can be overlaid on Google Maps. We then introduce MapTube, a technology to generate an archive of shared maps, before introducing Google Earth Creator, Image Cutter and PhotoOverlay Creator. All these tools allow users to display and share information over the web. Finally, we present how Second Life has the potential to combine all aspects of Web 2.0, visualisation and NeoGeography in a single multi-user three-dimensional collaborative environment.
If you are interested in reading our paper and can not access it (access through Universities should be free of charge), drop us an email via our contact page.
"The authors describe how we are harnessing the power of web 2.0 technologies to create new approaches to collecting, mapping, and sharing geocoded data. The authors begin with GMapCreator that lets users fashion new maps using Google Maps as a base. The authors then describe MapTube that enables users to archive maps and demonstrate how it can be used in a variety of contexts to share map information, to put existing maps into a form that can be shared, and to create new maps from the bottom-up using a combination of crowdcasting, crowdsourcing, and traditional broadcasting. The authors conclude by arguing that such tools are helping to define a neogeography that is essentially ‘‘mapping for the masses,’’ while noting that there are many issues of quality, accuracy, copyright, and trust that will influence the impact of these tools on map-based communication."
Marcus Foth in the edited book entitled “Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City” brings together in 29 chapters on recent research and development in the field of urban informatics from around the world. The book covers a plethora of topics including; community engagement, digital cities, digital identities, locative media, mobile and wireless applications, participatory planning, personal privacy, surveillance and sustainability.
It is a rather good book and the publishers have kindly allowed us to make our chapter 'The Neogeography of Virtual Cities: Digital Mirrors into a Recursive World' available online.
Abstract
Digital cities are moving well beyond their original conceptions as entities representing the way computers and communications are hard wired into the fabric of the city itself or as being embodied in software so the real city might be manipulated in silico for professional purposes.
As cities have become more “computable,” capable of manipulation through their digital content, large areas of social life are migrating to the web, becoming online so-to-speak. Here, we focus on the virtual city in software, presenting our speculations about how such cities are moving beyond the desktop to the point where they are rapidly becoming the desktop itself. But what emerges is a desktop with a difference, a desktop that is part of the web, characterized by a new generation of interactivity between users located at any time in any place. We first outline the state of the art in virtual city building drawing on the concept of mirror worlds and then comment on the emergence of Web 2.0 and the interactivity that it presumes.
We characterize these developments in terms of virtual cities through the virtual world of Second Life, showing how such worlds are moving to the point where serious scientific content and dialogue is characterizing their use often through the metaphor of the city itself.
Session Description: The Geoweb has revolutionized digital cartography and GIScience. The revolutionaries are neogeographers. According to Turner (2006), "Neogeography is about people using and creating their own maps, on their own terms and by combining elements of an existing toolset". Toolsets involve user-generated geospatial content (aka volunteered geographic information): geotagged Flickr photographs, Google Maps Mashups, Open Street maps, and loopt. It's more than software or Internet apps, "The geoaware Web isn't a product we buy; it's an environment we colonize" (Udall 2005).
Neogeography is posited as antithetical to traditional geography. To neos, GIScience appears fixated on data accuracy, vetting and documentation. Critical GIS makes dire pronouncements for geospatial gadgetry. Neogeographers call for flexible and playful artistic engagement with place (a "dissident cartographic aesthetic", {Holmes 2006}). Birthed in wikipedia ideologies of egalitarianism and disdain for expertise, they believe in "radical openness" (Udall 2005). GIScience is seen as a closed (and, coincidentally, insufficiently computational) enterprise, relying on clubbiness and on proprietary software. With this characterization, can neo and paleo ever be reconciled?
The panelists come from both camps, consider four questions. 1. What is the landscape of neo and UGGC and what do they reveal about the Geoweb's deeper socio-political implications? 2. What can each camp offer the other and what barriers impede communication? 3. What role does expertise hold in colonizing the Geoweb? 4. If neo is the current thing then what is post-neo? Panelists will seek linkages among paleo, neo, and geo.
Andy Turner notes that traditional geographers are finding it hard to keep up - Neogeography is simply about the user and about getting information online that is geotagged – ie outside the realm of traditional GIS. Of course, as Andrew Skupin, states a lot of geography is not GIS based in the first place so most geography is and always has been outside the realm of GIS. Andrew recommended the term ‘Naive geography’ over Neogeography. In some ways we see the term Naïve Geography as slightly patronizing to people who geo tag their photos, user Google Earth etc.
Martin is interestingly sitting on the bridge between the two - noting one of Martins students view that user generated content is ‘a bit rubbish’ – we would note that it is very early days and the spread of systems such a OpenStreet Map has been phenomenal in terms of time vs coverage. User generated content opens up the process of map making to the masses and not just a finished ‘product’ ala National Mapping Agencies.
Renee notes that traditional geographers has been dealing with the issues that Neogeographers are asking about for decades in the form of GIS. The difference is as Andy notes is that Neogeographers don’t need to sit through a semester of mapping projections etc to display, map and analyze their data. We would agree, the traditional GIS course is out of date, sure there is a place for it but if education is about preparing students for the future and the job market then perhaps a stronger emphasis on Web 2.0 toolkits is needed.
Perhaps the real problem is with ‘traditional geographers’ they are not generally out in the world communicating and sharing via blogs, forums, instead quietly publishing in journals etc. While there is nothing wrong with the traditional academic viewpoint, new tools are opening up the creation of data to the masses and with that there is a need for up to date knowledge via systems such as blogs.
Our view? Perhaps traditional geography is the rabbit in the head lights, the next five years are going to be very interesting in terms of geography, its traditions, its methods and techniques.
If any readers are attending the AAG next week in Las Vegas, then us here at digital urban along with gisagents.blogspot.com have organised a session entitled "Concepts, Tools and Applications: The Rise of Neogeography." The session discusses the concepts, tools, applications and challenges arising when collecting, sharing and communicating data for the Neogeographer, exploring a wide range of topics from Digital Earths, Volunteered Geographic Information and through to Virtual Worlds.
The session will take place on Friday, 27th of March, from 8:00 AM - 9:40 AM (is an early start..) in the North Hall N116, Las Vegas Convention Center
Below is a short paper we will be presenting in March at GISRUK 2009.
Crooks, A. T., Hudson-Smith, A., M., Milton, R., and Batty, M. (2009), Crowdsourcing Spatial Surveys and Mapping, in Fairbairn, D. (ed.), Proceedings of the 17th Geographical Information Systems Research UK Conference, Durham University, England.
This paper presents the potential of linking the GMap Creator software and the MapTube web service to create near-real time spatial surveys. Three different surveys will be presented which map people’s perceptions about certain questions, including the current financial crisis, anti-social behaviour and peoples thoughts on road pricing. Basic results will be highlighted for each and the geodemographic profiles of respondents will be explored. However, before discussing this, the underlying technologies that we use for the creation of the surveys: GMap Creator and MapTube, will be introduced.
1.1. GMap Creator
GMap Creator is a free piece of software that takes a shapefile and enables the creation of thematic layers which can be quickly and easily integrated into Google Maps in a simple ‘point and click’ manner (see Hudson-Smith et al. (under review) for more details). Using GMap Creator, it is possible to overlay pre-rendered thematic tiles on top of street and satellite views of Google Maps, making it possible to show complex areal coverage’s. The purpose of such a tool is to build feature rich cartographic websites that may easily be used and interpreted by individuals who have limited experience of spatial data handling (e.g. www.londonprofiler.org Gibin et al., 2008) rather than for more formal exploratory spatial data analysis.
1.2. MapTube
MapTube (www.maptube.org) combines the generic idea of YouTube where users can share information with the ability of GMap Creator to create thematic maps. MapTube provides a ‘place to put maps’ as we demonstrate in Figure 1, which highlights the most viewed maps currently on the MapTube site. MapTube acts as a portal for geographic data, data is not stored on the site. Every map hosted on MapTube is held on an outside server, and pulled in using the XML file which is automatically created when using GMap Creator. This allows data creators to maintain ownership of the data. MapTube allows one to view and compare different datasets as a series of layers (i.e. mashup) through the Google Map interface. However, we are currently working on an implementation for OpenLayers (see Milton, 2008).
Figure 1.MapTube home page showing the most popular maps.
2: Near Real-Time Spatial Surveys
Not only does MapTube allow people to share and view other people’s maps but it can also be used in more innovative ways. For example, as web surveys are often aspatial (e.g. surveymonkey.com), the ability to combine GMap Creator and MapTube offers a simple solution to build spatial surveys for large areas. Figure 2 shows the process of creating the near real-time maps. Users are asked a series of questions and to enter their postcode so that the results can be geo-coded. This is then sent to a web server, time stamped and stored in a database. Every 30 minutes (however, this can be varied) a script is run to create a new shapefile, compiling all the results from a survey, aggregating them into a spatial units (in this case postcode districts). The shapefile is then passed to GMap Creator along with an XML file containing information including: settings for colour thresholds, maximum level of zoom and the field name of the shapefile for which the map is to be created on. GMap Creator runs creates a series of image tiles which updates the map on MapTube which can then be served back over the internet.
Figure 2. The process of gathering, storing and creation of maps.
What follows are three surveys which map people’s perceptions about certain issues done in association various BBC organisations. For each survey no personal information was collected and participants were reassured that actual locations could not be identified. This was ensured through the use of postcode districts rather than the postcode unit or building address therefore preserving data confidentiality. Used in conjunction with MapTube, it allowed participants and other users to take other information and lay the maps on top of one other.
2.1. Mapping the Credit Crunch
A pilot study was carried out as an experiment to create a mood map of the credit crunch within the United Kingdom in conjunction with BBC Radio 4 iPM show . Based on what is the “singly most significant factor hurting the person the most about the credit crunch”, participants were asked to enter the first part of their postcode (postcode district) so their responses could be geo-tagged along with one of six options to choose from: mortgage or rent, fuel, food prices, holidays, other, or the credit crunch is not affecting me.
Between 26th April and 29th June 2008 there were 23475 responses to the survey with 48.8% of response saying that fuel was most significant factor hurting the person the most about the credit crunch (Figure 3). However there was spatial variation around the country with more respondents within Greater London saying it was either mortgage or rent, or food as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 3. Overall percentages for the Credit Crunch Survey.
Figure 4. Results of the Credit Crunch Survey Focused Around London (Note: the Colour represents the Most Frequent Response in the Postcode District).
2.2. Anti-Social Behaviour in East Anglia
The Credit Crunch Map has since led to BBC Look East, using the system to map peoples perceptions of anti-social behaviour.
Each respondent was asked “what problems do you face where you live?” Respondents had five options: drunken youths, noisy neighbours, boy racers, no problems, great community and no problems. The survey ran between 4th July 2008 and 12th September 2008. During this time 6902 responses were received. Figure 5 shows the overall percentages, with 33.7% saying drunken youths with the other categories broken down relatively evenly between 14 to 18%. Figure 6 maps the responses with drunken youths clustering around urban areas such as Norwich and Newmarket.
Figure 5. Overall Percentages for the Anti-Social Behaviour Survey.
Figure 6. Results of the Anti-Social Behaviour Survey Focused Around East Anglia (Note: the Colour represents the Most Frequent Response in the Postcode District, click here to see the map).
2.3. The Manchester Congestion Charge
There was a proposal for Manchester in introduce a congestion charge zone motorists pay to drive in and out of the city at peak times. The BBC North West Tonight program wanted people's reaction to the proposed Greater Manchester congestion charge, from within the city but also people who drive in from outside the region. As these people don't get a vote but may end up paying the charge (subsequently the people of Manchester said no).
People were asked the following question “If a congestion charge is introduced in Greater Manchester, along with significant investment in public transport, will you:” and then asked to select one of the following options: drive and pay the charge, drive at different times, use public transport/motorbike/bicycle, work or shop elsewhere, or I am not affected by these changes. The survey began on 14th October 2008. By the 10th December 2008, there were 14933 responses with 46.8% saying they would work or shop elsewhere (Figure 7). This online collaboration provided a unique picture of how well the proposal was going down across the north west of England as the map is updated every day (Click here to see the final map).
Figure 7. Overall percentages for the Manchester Congestion Survey.
3. Geodemographic Profiles of Respondents
While we only asked for respondents or their first part of their postcode, many entered their full postcode as can be seen in Table 1. We note that this in not a representative sample but it does provide an opportunity to further investigate who is responding to such surveys. To gain this understanding we use two geodemographic classification schemes. First, the Acorn classification from CACI which categorises neighbourhoods based on multidimensional socio-demographic attributes. The second being the e-Society geodemographic classification (Longley et al., 2008) which categorizes neighbourhoods based on their engagement with new information communication technologies.
For the analysis, index scores was calculated. An index score compares the over or under representation of a specific target variable against a base population (e.g. the national average). Where a score of 100 is the national average, 200 is double the national average and a score of 50 is 50% below the national average. From such analysis it is the middle and upper classes who are over-represented within the surveys as shown in Table 2, this potentially relates to demographics of the readers, listeners, and viewers Radio 4 and the BBC news. The over representation of E-business users in the E-society classification (Table 3) suggest many respondents are answering the questionnaire while at work. Furthermore the geodemographic profiles of responses to individual questions can also be explored as seen in Table 4. Across all demographic groups the biggest concern was fuel.
Table 1. Total Number of Respondents to Surveys and Number Who Entered Their Full Postcode.
Table 2. Index Scores of Respondents by Acorn Category Classification.
Table 3. Index Scores of Respondents by E-Society Group Classification.
Table 4. Percentage of Responses to the Credit Crunch Survey Broken Down by Acorn Category.
4. Discussion
This paper has demonstrated the potential of using GMap Creator and MapTube for near-real time spatial survey thus providing a resource to map the nations opinions to specific questions over space and time both statistically and geographically. The potential of this approach for gathering spatial information is enormous. For example, it could easily be used to gather other information such as fear of household burglary, the quality of primary school education and so on. We consider this in many senses this to be Web 2.0 and Neogeography in action.
However, the geodemographics of the respondents shows there is an inherit bias in who is answering the questions and there is the question to whether or not respondents are influenced by the maps before answering the questions. Further work is to explore how the maps evolve over time, as each response is time stamped and how this relates to news headlines. Additionally, we are currently exploring the geodemographic profiles of each survey in more detail. We have currently re-run the credit crunch with the BBC with slightly different options to the answer.
The question remains the same - "what single factor is hurting you most about the credit crunch?" But we decided to change the categories slightly:Mortgage or rent, Petrol, Food prices, Job security, Utility bills, or Not affected. This survey ran between 5th October 2008 and 3 February 2009 and has now closed. The final map can be viewed here. During this time we received 20,072 responses, which can be broken down as follows (Figure 8): Mortgage or Rent 11.05%, Petrol 4.7%, Food Prices 11.89%, Job Security 27.25%, Utility Bills 21.92%, and Not Affected 23.20%
The Return of the Credit Crunch on the BBC Site
Figure 8: Overall percentages for the Credit Crunch Survey
5. References
Gibin M, Singleton AD, Mateos P, and Longley PA. (2008) Exploratory cartographic visualisation of London using the Google Maps API Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy 1(2) pp85-97.
Hudson-Smith A, Crooks AT, Gibin M, Milton R, and Batty M (under review) Neogeography and Web 2.0: Concepts, Tools and Applications, Journal of Location Based Services.
Longley PA, Webber R, Li C, (2008) The UK geography of the e-society: a national classification Environment and Planning A 40(2) pp362-382.
The last two days have been spent at the AGI Conference in Stratford Upon Avon.
Its been a Neogeography and Web 2.0 dominated conference with a number of talks that while interesting have been worrying for their basic level of explanation – do people in the GIS industry really need to be told what KML or Web 2.0 is? Surely rather than a slightly ‘jack and jane’ view the emphasis should be on applications, techniques and experiences.
Perhaps it was just me but I found the general level of understanding disappointing. Or perhaps I just assume people in the GI industry should know this stuff as its at the heart of the GI revolution. Then again it could simply be a lack of coffee this morning and being too close to the subject. That said i did come away slightly saddened by it all...
Anyhow that aside there was an interesting talk on ‘The Ripening of Digital Globes – From Earth Viewing to Decision Support’ by Johannes Kebeck of Microsoft. In short there is a close tie up between ESRI and Virtual Earth with the main point being that Virtual Earth is merely a ‘viewer’ for information, all the tech stuff still needs a GIS behind the scenes. Of course this is mainly common sense, perhaps of more interesting was the comment that Microsoft are in the Virtual Earth game purely for the advertising revenue that if realized could surpass the income of the Windows operating system.
Of course perhaps that’s common sense as well, we know Microsoft and Google are not in the field for their shear love of geography. They have however changed the game and opened up the sharing of geographical information to the masses, which can only be a good thing…
Digital Urban in association with Dr Andrew Crooks from GIS Agents are organising a session at the 2009 AAG entitled "Concepts, Tools and Applications: The Rise of Neogeography". Full details are below along with details on how to submit and abstract - note the closing date is 8th October 2008.
Below is an extended abstract for the session:
The world of Geographic Information (GI) Science has changed. It has experienced expeditious growth over the last few years leading to fundamental changes to the field. Web 2.0, specifically The Cloud, GeoWeb and Crowd Sourcing are revolutionising the way in which we gather, present, share and analyse geographic data. This renaissance in the importance of geography in the Web 2.0 world is becoming known as 'Neogeography'.
Neogeography is geography for the general public using Web 2.0 techniques to create and overlay their own locational and related information on and into systems that mirror the real world. Location and space now represents a key part of the Web 2.0 revolution. Tagging not only the type of information but where such information is produced, who uses it and at what time, is fast becoming the killer application that roots information about interactivity generated across the web to systems that users can easily access and use in their own communication with others.
The aim of this session is twofold; first to bring together practitioners to discuss concepts and challenges that the field of Neogeography faces. Secondly, to provide an opportunity for researchers and developers to present recent tools and applications for collecting, sharing and communicating spatial data for the Neogeographer. We are actively seeking topics ranging across the entire spectrum of Neogeography, from Crowdsourcing, Digital Earths, Neogeography, Web Mashups, Volunteered Geographic Information, Virtual Worlds (e.g. Second Life) and associated Web 2.0 technologies.
Anyone who wishes to presents a paper must first register for the annual meeting, submit an abstract (no more than 250 words that describes the presentation's purpose, methods, and conclusions). Once this has been done, you need to contact us with your program identification number (PIN), which we will use to add you to the session.
Our latest working paper is now available for download - entitled Mapping for the Masses:Accessing Web 2.0 through Crowdsourcing.
Abstract
The paper first develops the network paradigm that is currently dominating the way we think about the internet and introduce varieties of social networking that are being fashioned in interactive web environments. This serves to ground our arguments about Web 2.0 technologies. These constitute ways in which users of web-based services can take on the role of producers as well as consumers of information that derive from such services with sharing becoming a dominant mode of adding value to such data.
These developments are growing Web 2.0 from the ground up, enabling users to derive hitherto unknown, hidden and even new patterns and correlations in data that imply various kinds of social networking.
We define crowdsourcing and crowdcasting as essential ways in which large groups of users come together to create data and to add value by sharing. This is highly applicable to new forms of mapping. We begin by noting that maps have become important services on the internet with nonproprietary services such as Google Maps being ways in which users can fashion their own functionality. We review various top-down and bottom-up strategies and then present our own contributions in the form of GMapCreator that lets users fashion new maps using Google Maps as a base.
We have extended this into an archive of pointers to maps created by this software, which is called MapTube, and we demonstrate how it can be used in a variety of contexts to share map information, to put existing maps into a form that can be shared, and to create new maps from the bottom up using a combination of crowdcasting, crowdsourcing and traditional broadcasting.
The paper concludes by arguing that these developments define a neogeography which is essentially ‘mapping for the masses’.
The world of Geographic Information (GI) Science has changed. It has experienced expeditious growth over the last few years leading to fundamental changes to the field. Web 2.0, specifically The Cloud, GeoWeb and Wikitecture are revolutionising the way in which we present, share and analyse geographic data.
In this paper we outline and provide working examples a suite of tools which are detailed below, aimed at developing new applications of GIS and related technologies. GeoVUE is one of seven nodes in the National Centre for e-Social Science whose mission it is to develop web-based technologies for the social and geographical sciences. The Node, based at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London has developed a suite of free software allowing quick and easy visualisation of geographic data in systems such as Google Maps, Google Earth, Crysis and Second Life.
These tools address two issues, firstly that spatial data is still inherently difficult to share and visualise for the non-GIS trained academic or professional and secondly that a geographic data social network has the potential to dramatically open up data sources for both the public and professional geographer.
With our applications of GMap Creator, and MapTube to name but two, we detail ways to intelligently visualise and share spatial data. This paper concludes with detailing usage and outreach as well as an insight into how such tools are already providing a significant impact to the outreach of geographic information.
Such tools open up a cornucopia of possibilities for the world of GI Science, especially for geovisualisation and it is high time to embrace the Neogeographer, the data and perhaps more importantly the services they are creating.
Welcome to the new world of geographic information.
