Homero Fonseca Filho

User studies in cartography : opportunities for empirical research on interactive maps and visualizations

ABSTRACT The possibility of digital interactivity requires us to reenvision the map reader as the map user, and to address the perceptual, cognitive, cultural, and practical considerations that influence the user’s experience with interactive maps and visualizations. In this article, we present an agenda for empirical research on this user and the interactive designs he or she employs. The research agenda is a result of a multi-stage discussion among international scholars facilitated by the International Cartographic Association that included an early round of position papers and two subsequent workshops to narrow into pressing themes and important research opportunities. The focus of our discussion is epistemological and reflects the wide interdisciplinary influences on user studies in cartography. The opportunities are presented as imperatives that cross basic research and user-centered design studies, and identify practical impediments to empirical research, emerging interdisciplinary recommendations to improve user studies, and key research needs specific to the study of interactive maps and visualizations.

Teaching VGI as a strategy to promote the production of urban digital cartographic databases

Exploring a “real life use case”, the present study analyzed Internet free and open map systems and elected OpenStreetMap as appropriate for undergraduate students who have studied and tested it. OpenStreetMap (OSM) proved to be easily used by students, mainly due to the community-oriented characteristics of this “Volunteered geographic information” - system (VGI). The test conducted by this research work was the adoption of tasks such as mapping towns within cartography disciplines, which confirmed the ability of OSM to contribute to the learning process, using their “local knowledge”, motivated for involving real-life problems of their local neighborhoods as problem-oriented learning approach. A learning step flow (script) indicated that such conditions can be explored in formal academic (cyber-) cartographic education in both ways: cartographic production and education can mutually benefit from each other - based on a collaborative framework pushed by local real-life challenges. Overall, this paper will be of interest to lecturers and students considering using OSM as a “learn by doing” platform for “Location-based service applications” (LBS).

Citizen Science Involving Collections of Standardized Community Data

The interest of “Citizen Scientists” in their local environment is potentially of great value because they can assist in supplying essential “Environmental Knowledge” in an efficient and cost-effective way. This is particularly the case when “Volunteered Data” is registered in a standardized manner, interoperable with the data created by official institutions. The present work incorporates OpenStreetMap (OSM) and broadly accepted metadata-standards, that are controlled by scientific communities, to include the use of standardized interfaces for volunteered data contributions. An essential requirement for citizen science to operate, is the participation of the people. Spatial cognition is concerned with the acquisition, organization, employment, and examination of “knowledge about spatial environments”. By this means “knowledge about spatial environments” is related to geographic proximity. Both OSM and metadata standards explore recent technologies for “Semantic Web” (SW) and “Linked Open Data” (LOD) enablement. The present study discusses the challenges and effects of standardized community contributions.

Interlinking Standardized OpenStreetMap Data and Citizen Science Data in the OpenData Cloud

The aim of this work is to explore the opportunities offered by semantic standardization to interlink primary “spatial data” (GI) from “OpenStreetMap” (OSM) with repositories of the “Linked Open Data Cloud” (LOD). Research in natural sciences can generate vast amounts of spatial data, where Wikidata could be considered as the central hub between more detailed natural science hubs on the spatial semantic web. Wikidata is a world readable and writable community-driven knowledge base. It offers the opportunity to collaboratively construct an open access knowledge graph that spans biology, medicine, and all other domains of knowledge. In this study we discuss the opportunities and challenges provided by exploring Wikidata as a central integration facility by interlink it with OSM, a popular, community drives collection of free geographic data. This is empowered by the reuse of terms and properties from commonly understood controlled vocabularies that represent their respective well-identified knowledge domains.