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GI Science and technology - where next?
Josef Strobl
Center for Geoinformatics
Salzburg University, Austria
josef.strobl@sbg.ac.at
For some time now GIS has been expected to turn a corner and enter into the mainstream
of computing, and maybe society. Chances are there that this will happen through a more
'location aware' society supported by services built on positioning, distributed geospatial
databases and connected with ubiquitous telecommunication coverage. Will GI science
lead the way, or will GI technology drive developments
Due to the potential of 'location' to serve as the critical link connecting the virtual and real worlds it is argued that the geospatial domain plays a critical role in establishing the business foundations of any information society.
GI-*?
When we discuss current trends and a vision where we expect to be standing several years from now, we first have to establish a clear frame of reference. GI Systems as software architectures link technology and methods to application and business domains. GI Science researches the conceptual background and methodology frameworks implemented in GI Systems and guiding applications.
GI manifested in geospatial data collections and data streams represents the real world, thus describing application domains and making them accessible for digital workflows. GI technol-ogy reaches beyond the software in GISystems to include sen-sor systems and dedicated interaction devices from handhelds to vision aids.
For a discussion on trends and visions, we will have to pursue an integrated perspective with a focus on what we will be able to do many years from now. The science behind that, it's trans-lation into technology and systems, and the availability of mul-tiple and detailed digital representations of past, current and future realities are being integrated towards future capabilities.
All GI-* combined will serve the purpose of providing an explicitly 'spatial user interface' for our world across all its different scales, facets, themes and user perspectives.
RECENT 'GIS DEVELOPMENTS'
Before attempting to look into future perspectives, we first need to review recent trends as an indicator of where substantial change is currently occuring. Of course any such listing is highly subjective, but most experts will likely agree on the majority of items mentioned here:
All too often we are focussing on 'what can be done with tech-nology' and 'how we can leverage progress in GIScience'. Preferably we should look into 'use cases' and analyze what needs in society are being and need to be supported by progress in the GI fields from technology to science.
GIS is still burdened (like many ICT fields) by the 'automa-tion trap' of computers being fast and good at clearly defined repetitive tasks. Therefore long established jobs are more effec-tively done, which led to file cabinets moving to databases, typ-ing to word processing, drafting to CAD and of course map-ping to GIS. The quest for the 'map looking like the one we've always had' is still on in many people's minds.
For real progress, GIS clearly needs to focus not on doing a better job at established tasks, but rather to see how tasks can best be organised to reach our societal, environmental and busi-ness objectives. Analyzing how to reach these objectives, break-ing down workflows into tasks and then researching any miss-ing concepts or methods through GIScience will lead to newly defined 'jobs' for GIS instead!
So, what are GIS good at now? Documentation through static representations, change detection and visualisation proba-bly rank among the most frequent applications. Spatial analysis helps create new insights by generating information from data through advanced methods. Dynamic process models and sce-nario techniques support spatial decision support applications.
All of these will be needed and provided in the future, but is there more to come?
Certainly, we will be moving from analyzing and presenting manifest data sets towards working with streams of mostly geo-referenced data. Without the 'where?' any data on 'how much?'
/ 'what?' / 'how?' / 'when?' are missing much of their value, hence sensors deliver a fixed or moving location integrated into their reports. Through data networks, these reports are deliv-ered right away. This means that instead of analyzing past pat-terns, we are looking at the 'current picture'. Insight into the past gives way to real time applications. Instead of learning from what did not work well to do it better the next time around, we can react right away.
GIS therefore is moving towards real time control. Cartography develops into a human-computer interface disci-pline for spatial views supporting interaction with current processes or for deep, recursive analysis of spatial data. In essence, the long feedback loop is shortened substantially: what used to be an elaborate cycle of data acquisition, analysis, visu-alisation and decision making is for many applications being compressed into real time monitoring and control
THE 5 / 5 S&T TRENDS
Observing the above outlined current trends and changes to business logics involving geospatial information, we now might want to assess where we expect to stand several years from now. Distinguishing technology developments from GI science quests will be helpful while acknowledging that both areas are of course tightly linked in a symmetric stimulus - response relationship.
First, looking at expected technological progress, the main drivers clearly are broad, multiple use developments demon-strating that GIS is increasingly becoming an integral part of mainstream ICT:
Education towards professional qualifications has frequently been named as a key factor towards extending the reach of the geospatial industry, with the idea that qualified specialists rang-ing from IT-focussed via methodology-centered analyst to application experts. While this observation is certainly true and needs to be supported through the development of suitable curricula and implementation of programs across traditional boundaries between disciplines, another aspect might be even more decisive. Traditionally, one aspect of schooling is the establishment of literacy as a foundation for critical thinking, creativity and participation. The spatial angle has been covered by the building of map reading skills supporting education towards spatial awareness and understanding many facets of our world. Well, map reading skills are changing substantially and are applied in the computing domain. 'Maps' now move, change perspective, can be actively navigated and are much more an orientation device and spatial user interface.
Most surveys and visionary perspectives claim that the geospatial industry is moving from a technology-oriented niche into the mainstream of society. GI only has limited growth potential in the business-to-business sectors of corporate decision support, workflow optimisation and day-to-day oper-ations. Rather, a customer-focused evolution towards spatially enabled and locally centered services are considered as a major growth opportunity.
If we want customers to use a search engine's spatial portal as their default web page, bookmark their community's map interface, work out an itinerary from a spatial perspective and shop, eat and interact with friends based on ICT-facilitated proximity, we need support from general education.
Spatial literacy is not about teaching GIS in schools. Rather, creating spatial awareness, navigational ICT skills and an understanding that all or most of today's problems have a significant spatial aspect to them need to become objectives throughout schools curricula. Only spatially aware citizens with the requisite ICT skills will be able to critically participate and contribute to an information society.
WILL OUR LIVES BE DIFFERENT?
Of course the answer will be yes and no, depending on what we consider the defining aspects. Will our future lives be different due to progress in geoinformatics? For all of us, and many others, yes. In what ways will life be different? This will depend largely on lifestyles, professions and interests, and of course our geographical and societal positions on the globe.
Geospatial information will more and more affect us on different scales. The 'global village' and the much quoted links between local action and global thinking will become less philosophical and more practical. Beyond the obvious assistance with travel and transportation, geography affects everything around us. The environment, sustainability and infrastructures are all inherently geographical issues. As they are being represented through geoinformation to enable direct, location aware interaction, digital geospatial interfaces essentially become our dashboards as we navigate life.
On a practical level, the trend towards networked services means that local availability of computing and processing power becomes much less critical than the availability of band-width. If ample bandwidth is provided differences in educa-tion, opportunities and participation will decrease. Bandwidth as an indicator for access to information and interaction there-fore is the key differentiating factor in future geographies.
TOWARDS THE GEO-INFORMATION SOCIETY
The European Union’s 'Information Society' concept claimes that the spatial aspect is pertinent to a majority of information aspects and it also provides interesting perspectives to toy with the term 'Geo-Information Society'. I believe that, in a way, we are moving into this direction.
Let us briefly look at information from an abstract meta-per-spective: information objects or features can be located in an 'information cube' which has defined geographical research since the early days of the (then) 'quantitative revolution'. Objects have attributes characterizing their position in subject, temporal and spatial domains. A cube (Fig 1) with the dimen-sions of subject (what?), time (when?) and place (where?) can therefore be used to place information objects.
This view provides support for the argument that GIS is not a distinct area along the lines of the 'spatial-is-special' phrase, but geography is rather a view, often a very important view on our world through the lens of information representations. In simple terms, the spatial dimension is a key component of the 'context' of objects, and which affects our actions. Providing full context for decisions and actions is essential, as we know from our many 'profiles' we use to make software and services more focussed on our preferences and intentions. Context is a key enabler of semantic-rich interaction (Semantic Web, see reference), and context is rarely complete without location.
So, the concept of a Geo-Information Society as a more context-sensitive, less abstract concept might not be so far-fetched after all! Technologically speaking, it is built on three pillars: (Fig 2) geospatial data as digitale representations of much of our world; positioning services putting people, assets and other 'objects' into this context; and mobile telecommuni-cation connecting everything and providing access for users.
GI SCIENCE AND THE INFORMATION ECONOMYM
In 1995 and 1997, the magazine 'Economist' declared the 'death of distance' caused by information infrastructures making location largely irrelevant. Telecommunication, telecommuting and globalization appeared as clear indicators. Interpreting Tobler's 'First Law of Geography' (stating 'Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things') this should mean that geog-raphy had to be declared defunct as well.
In March 2003, though, the same publication tltled an arti-cle 'The revenge of geography', starting with the observation: "In the early days of the internet boom, there was much talk of the death of distance. The emergence of a global digital net-work, it seemed, would put an end to mundane physical or geo-graphical constraints. There was some truth in this, but …"
Clearly, the authors had recognized that location provides the best general means of connecting virtual and real worlds. This connect in turn is required to provide business models for the information economy - Geography and GI Science are well placed to provide some of them!
Just as there are 'macro' and 'micro' aspects to economy, we recognize this as a valuable distinction in geography and now GI science. Up to now we have mostly worked in the frame of macro-geography. Now due to positioning services, detailed geospatial data, and powerful communication GIS moves more towards micro-geography. Actually, there would be no macro-economy without the micro-level of businesses. I wonder what it means that GIS has come the other way?
Due to the potential of 'location' to serve as the critical link connecting the virtual and real worlds it is argued that the geospatial domain plays a critical role in establishing the business foundations of any information society.
GI-*?
When we discuss current trends and a vision where we expect to be standing several years from now, we first have to establish a clear frame of reference. GI Systems as software architectures link technology and methods to application and business domains. GI Science researches the conceptual background and methodology frameworks implemented in GI Systems and guiding applications.
GI manifested in geospatial data collections and data streams represents the real world, thus describing application domains and making them accessible for digital workflows. GI technol-ogy reaches beyond the software in GISystems to include sen-sor systems and dedicated interaction devices from handhelds to vision aids.
For a discussion on trends and visions, we will have to pursue an integrated perspective with a focus on what we will be able to do many years from now. The science behind that, it's trans-lation into technology and systems, and the availability of mul-tiple and detailed digital representations of past, current and future realities are being integrated towards future capabilities.
All GI-* combined will serve the purpose of providing an explicitly 'spatial user interface' for our world across all its different scales, facets, themes and user perspectives.
RECENT 'GIS DEVELOPMENTS'
Before attempting to look into future perspectives, we first need to review recent trends as an indicator of where substantial change is currently occuring. Of course any such listing is highly subjective, but most experts will likely agree on the majority of items mentioned here:
- More or less isolated desktop systems have become part of distributed architectures. Recent and upcoming releases of GI software clearly demonstrate that they work best against a backdrop of services feeding into the workflow of the locally-based analyst.
- Developments initiated through the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) have crystallized the interoperability concept and contributed to a unified web of services evolving into our GI infrastructures.
- The past 'data bottleneck' where projects were stifled by the enormous efforts needed to supply data has by and large given way to a 'flood of data'. Data mining and 'intelligent' extraction of relevant information are critical to effective operations.
- Part of this 'flood' is provided by a multitude of sensors above and at the earth's surface. These sensors supply georeferenced streams of measurements, effectively tieing the virtual world of geographic models into the real world around our lives.
- Largely due to these sensors and ubiquitous connectivity, capabilities for near real-time monitoring have evolved. For a large part of GIS' past, we were essentially processing historical data, only recently we are moving towards 'current affairs'.
- This development has been made feasible by the now pervasive presence of positioning devices. Our societies are increasingly mobile in every respect: individual, environmental and business 'objects' change position frequently, without tracking our model of the real world would not be current.
All too often we are focussing on 'what can be done with tech-nology' and 'how we can leverage progress in GIScience'. Preferably we should look into 'use cases' and analyze what needs in society are being and need to be supported by progress in the GI fields from technology to science.
GIS is still burdened (like many ICT fields) by the 'automa-tion trap' of computers being fast and good at clearly defined repetitive tasks. Therefore long established jobs are more effec-tively done, which led to file cabinets moving to databases, typ-ing to word processing, drafting to CAD and of course map-ping to GIS. The quest for the 'map looking like the one we've always had' is still on in many people's minds.
For real progress, GIS clearly needs to focus not on doing a better job at established tasks, but rather to see how tasks can best be organised to reach our societal, environmental and busi-ness objectives. Analyzing how to reach these objectives, break-ing down workflows into tasks and then researching any miss-ing concepts or methods through GIScience will lead to newly defined 'jobs' for GIS instead!
So, what are GIS good at now? Documentation through static representations, change detection and visualisation proba-bly rank among the most frequent applications. Spatial analysis helps create new insights by generating information from data through advanced methods. Dynamic process models and sce-nario techniques support spatial decision support applications.
All of these will be needed and provided in the future, but is there more to come?
Certainly, we will be moving from analyzing and presenting manifest data sets towards working with streams of mostly geo-referenced data. Without the 'where?' any data on 'how much?'
/ 'what?' / 'how?' / 'when?' are missing much of their value, hence sensors deliver a fixed or moving location integrated into their reports. Through data networks, these reports are deliv-ered right away. This means that instead of analyzing past pat-terns, we are looking at the 'current picture'. Insight into the past gives way to real time applications. Instead of learning from what did not work well to do it better the next time around, we can react right away.
GIS therefore is moving towards real time control. Cartography develops into a human-computer interface disci-pline for spatial views supporting interaction with current processes or for deep, recursive analysis of spatial data. In essence, the long feedback loop is shortened substantially: what used to be an elaborate cycle of data acquisition, analysis, visu-alisation and decision making is for many applications being compressed into real time monitoring and control
THE 5 / 5 S&T TRENDS
Observing the above outlined current trends and changes to business logics involving geospatial information, we now might want to assess where we expect to stand several years from now. Distinguishing technology developments from GI science quests will be helpful while acknowledging that both areas are of course tightly linked in a symmetric stimulus - response relationship.
First, looking at expected technological progress, the main drivers clearly are broad, multiple use developments demon-strating that GIS is increasingly becoming an integral part of mainstream ICT:
- Sensors, based on the SensorWeb framework are penetrat-ing our world widely. This means that the state of our environment, business assets and society's infrastructure is thoroughly monitored and available for diagnostic and controlling action.
- Positioning technologies are being integrated into sensor frameworks, and positioning / navigation applications will become independent from specific technologies like GPS, GSM, Wifi or others. Transparently roaming across position-ing technologies across a ubiquitous positioning infrastruc-ture is a key enabler for novel applications.
- Due to pervasive networking and 'the network being the system' (a) local (geo-) processing capabilities are much less critical for GIS applications than access to the network.
- Interaction with digital information is becoming much less abstract. Working directly with spatial views (Google and Microsoft Virtual Earth currently leading the way) ties the 'online domain' directly into daily individual experience and perception. This likely will turn out to be a major driver towards the development of spatial data infrastructure services.
-
Finally, access and interface devices will be defined by
workflows, not by GIS. We need a big desktop screen to
look at a map? Well, do we actually need to look at a map
or can we relate the required information otherwise? A
majority of geospatial applications will not be tied to
map-like user interfaces, but rather provide 'location
intelligence' in the background.
Interacting with technology trends like these, GI science will set priorities continuing from current research as well as explore new areas. Again, there are of course many legitimate perspec-tives - First and foremost, although this might come as a surprise to many, privacy and preservation of civil rights clearly top the list. Location is such a powerful key for integrating and accessing data collections that this issue has a huge potential for a backlash against leveraging spatial information to benefit society and our lives. How to protect individuals' locations and tracks, how to design applica-tions without generating a 'big brother' effect will have to be high on our research agenda.
- As a related theme, geospatial enabling will be accepted as a means towards more public participation, supporting the empowerment of citizens. Citizens watch (instead of being watched!) and participate in planning and decisions affect-ing their lives and interests. Geospatial applications as a local communication platform require a high level of spatial literacy, this has to be confronted as an educational task.
- With increasing flow of data, methodology research is being focused on approaches to spatial pattern recognition in a wide sense. Filtering data streams to extract meaningful information is needed to environmental monitoring, security, infrastructure operations and transportation applications.
- Visual interaction (and other human sensory interfacing) ties the real world into our virtual models. Designing spa-tially enabled human-computer interaction (HCI) is a key theme supporting penetration of geospatial applications throughout personal and professional applications, provid-ing assistance for mundane tasks as well as 'performance support'.
- Research towards 'intelligent' infrastructures integrates many currently leading topics in GI science. Infrastructures serve a purpose, they should do so efficiently and effec-tively and without causing undue harm. Research in seman-tic web, including cognitive aspects, emphasizing sustain-ability and minimum impact all come together in this meta-topic with a long overlooked strong GI science dimension.
Education towards professional qualifications has frequently been named as a key factor towards extending the reach of the geospatial industry, with the idea that qualified specialists rang-ing from IT-focussed via methodology-centered analyst to application experts. While this observation is certainly true and needs to be supported through the development of suitable curricula and implementation of programs across traditional boundaries between disciplines, another aspect might be even more decisive. Traditionally, one aspect of schooling is the establishment of literacy as a foundation for critical thinking, creativity and participation. The spatial angle has been covered by the building of map reading skills supporting education towards spatial awareness and understanding many facets of our world. Well, map reading skills are changing substantially and are applied in the computing domain. 'Maps' now move, change perspective, can be actively navigated and are much more an orientation device and spatial user interface.
Most surveys and visionary perspectives claim that the geospatial industry is moving from a technology-oriented niche into the mainstream of society. GI only has limited growth potential in the business-to-business sectors of corporate decision support, workflow optimisation and day-to-day oper-ations. Rather, a customer-focused evolution towards spatially enabled and locally centered services are considered as a major growth opportunity.
If we want customers to use a search engine's spatial portal as their default web page, bookmark their community's map interface, work out an itinerary from a spatial perspective and shop, eat and interact with friends based on ICT-facilitated proximity, we need support from general education.
Spatial literacy is not about teaching GIS in schools. Rather, creating spatial awareness, navigational ICT skills and an understanding that all or most of today's problems have a significant spatial aspect to them need to become objectives throughout schools curricula. Only spatially aware citizens with the requisite ICT skills will be able to critically participate and contribute to an information society.
WILL OUR LIVES BE DIFFERENT?
Of course the answer will be yes and no, depending on what we consider the defining aspects. Will our future lives be different due to progress in geoinformatics? For all of us, and many others, yes. In what ways will life be different? This will depend largely on lifestyles, professions and interests, and of course our geographical and societal positions on the globe.
Geospatial information will more and more affect us on different scales. The 'global village' and the much quoted links between local action and global thinking will become less philosophical and more practical. Beyond the obvious assistance with travel and transportation, geography affects everything around us. The environment, sustainability and infrastructures are all inherently geographical issues. As they are being represented through geoinformation to enable direct, location aware interaction, digital geospatial interfaces essentially become our dashboards as we navigate life.
On a practical level, the trend towards networked services means that local availability of computing and processing power becomes much less critical than the availability of band-width. If ample bandwidth is provided differences in educa-tion, opportunities and participation will decrease. Bandwidth as an indicator for access to information and interaction there-fore is the key differentiating factor in future geographies.
TOWARDS THE GEO-INFORMATION SOCIETY
The European Union’s 'Information Society' concept claimes that the spatial aspect is pertinent to a majority of information aspects and it also provides interesting perspectives to toy with the term 'Geo-Information Society'. I believe that, in a way, we are moving into this direction.
Let us briefly look at information from an abstract meta-per-spective: information objects or features can be located in an 'information cube' which has defined geographical research since the early days of the (then) 'quantitative revolution'. Objects have attributes characterizing their position in subject, temporal and spatial domains. A cube (Fig 1) with the dimen-sions of subject (what?), time (when?) and place (where?) can therefore be used to place information objects.
This view provides support for the argument that GIS is not a distinct area along the lines of the 'spatial-is-special' phrase, but geography is rather a view, often a very important view on our world through the lens of information representations. In simple terms, the spatial dimension is a key component of the 'context' of objects, and which affects our actions. Providing full context for decisions and actions is essential, as we know from our many 'profiles' we use to make software and services more focussed on our preferences and intentions. Context is a key enabler of semantic-rich interaction (Semantic Web, see reference), and context is rarely complete without location.
So, the concept of a Geo-Information Society as a more context-sensitive, less abstract concept might not be so far-fetched after all! Technologically speaking, it is built on three pillars: (Fig 2) geospatial data as digitale representations of much of our world; positioning services putting people, assets and other 'objects' into this context; and mobile telecommuni-cation connecting everything and providing access for users.
GI SCIENCE AND THE INFORMATION ECONOMYM
In 1995 and 1997, the magazine 'Economist' declared the 'death of distance' caused by information infrastructures making location largely irrelevant. Telecommunication, telecommuting and globalization appeared as clear indicators. Interpreting Tobler's 'First Law of Geography' (stating 'Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things') this should mean that geog-raphy had to be declared defunct as well.
In March 2003, though, the same publication tltled an arti-cle 'The revenge of geography', starting with the observation: "In the early days of the internet boom, there was much talk of the death of distance. The emergence of a global digital net-work, it seemed, would put an end to mundane physical or geo-graphical constraints. There was some truth in this, but …"
Clearly, the authors had recognized that location provides the best general means of connecting virtual and real worlds. This connect in turn is required to provide business models for the information economy - Geography and GI Science are well placed to provide some of them!
Just as there are 'macro' and 'micro' aspects to economy, we recognize this as a valuable distinction in geography and now GI science. Up to now we have mostly worked in the frame of macro-geography. Now due to positioning services, detailed geospatial data, and powerful communication GIS moves more towards micro-geography. Actually, there would be no macro-economy without the micro-level of businesses. I wonder what it means that GIS has come the other way?