-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Specialist meeting call on volunteered geographic information
Date:   Wed, 5 Sep 2007 14:09:11 -0400
From:   Jane M. Read <[log in to unmask]>
To:     maps-l
References:


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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: SPECIALIST MEETING ON VOLUNTEERED GEOGRAPHIC
INFORMATION

In the past few years a flood of new web services and other digital
sources have emerged that can potentially provide rich, abundant, and
timely flows of geographic and geo-referenced information. Collectively
they might be termed /volunteered/ sources. They include geotagged
entries in Wikipedia, the more specialized place descriptions
accumulating in Wikimapia, sites such as OpenStreetMap that support
volunteer efforts to create public-domain geospatial data layers, the
geotagged photographs of Flickr, and mashups with Google Earth and
Google Maps. It is now possible to find out an enormous amount about the
geographic domain from such sources, provided they can be synthesized,
verified, integrated, and distributed. Such sources have earlier
precursors in /citizen science/, as exemplified by the Christmas Bird
Count or Project GLOBE.

To date there has been very little investigation of this domain by the
research community, despite its potential. We therefore propose to hold
a specialist meeting in December 2007 to examine a number of fundamental
questions, including: What motivates citizens to provide such
information in the public domain, and what factors govern/predict its
validity? What methods might be used to validate such information, and
to attach appropriate metadata to it? Can VGI be framed within the
larger domain of sensor networks, in which inert and static sensors are
replaced by, or combined with, intelligent and mobile humans? What
limitations are imposed on VGI by differential access to broadband
Internet, mobile phones, and other communication technologies, and by
concerns over privacy?

The specialist meeting will be held at the Upham Hotel in Santa Barbara,
beginning early on December 13 and ending late on December 14. It will
be organized under the auspices of NCGIA, Los Alamos National
Laboratory, and the Vespucci Initiative. Approximately 30 participants
will be drawn from the academic, industrial, and governmental sectors.

Applications are invited to participate in the meeting, and limited
funding is available to support travel and accommodation. Please send a
2-page resume and a 2-page position paper outlining your interest in the
topic to [log in to unmask] before September 20. Decisions will be
announced before September 30.

Michael F. Goodchild, UCSB
Rajan Gupta, LANL


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Michael F Goodchild
National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis and
Department of Geography
Ellison Hall 5707
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, USA
Office: +1 805 893 8049
FAX: +1 805 893 3146
Mobile: +1 805 455 6529
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