M. F. Goodchild
International Journal of Geographic Information
Science, Volume 6, Issue 1 1992
Geographic Information Science.
Geographic Information Science "Is the basic research field that seeks to redefine geographic concepts and their use in the context of geographic information systems. GIScience also examines the impacts of GIS on individuals and society, and the influences of society on GIS. GIS cience re-examines some of the most fundamental themes in traditional spatially oriented fields such as geography, cartography, and geodesy, while incorporatin more recent developments in cognitive and information science. It also overlaps with and draws from more specialized research fields such as computer science, statistics, mathematics, and psychology, and contributes to progress in those fields. It supports research in political science and anthropology,and draws on those fields in studies of geographic information and society.” (Mark, 2000). Since the early 1990's GISc has changed greatly, but the
article that turned GIS from simply a system to a Science "Geographic
Information Science" by professor Michael Goodchild was very forward thinking.
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| Micheal Goodchild |
Micheal Goodchild (Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Director of UCSB’s Center for Spatial Studies.) Did not provide a definition of GIScience, but rather outlined the scope of the field indirectly by listing the major components of the Geographic Information Scienceresearch agenda.
Professor Goodchild demostrated that the technological revolutions happening in GIS would change the way reserachers would study the world and the environment. Goodchild basically stated that GIS is an alternative method to look at dimension, where with it you can visit any location with unlimited precision, although this would raise a host of issues that would need to be resolved. For example the use of virtual sheets of paper (a flat surface) instead of the globe would distort the image, of which Goodchild believed GIS must develop new techniques to be able to successfully scale maps.
He stated that GIScience is a human need for information manegement, and while enormous strides have been made in technology for capturing geographic data he believed (in 1992) that there still existed flaws with the science. For example, the use of disfunctional algorithms, having too much emphasis on the information mangement rather than analyzing the data and finally the changing of the scale in a map could alter the information that it provided. Professor Goodchild stated that all problems that have been solved in GIS have been the easiest to solve; those that have not usually have to do with the lack of the right technology.
Twenty years later there is no doubt that GIScience has greatly advanced in it's field. With the use of new computer programming software (Arcmap) the science has been able to expand and fix mistakes that used to be considered unfixable. For example, while using a flat map you can add "projections" which will keep the image from becoming distorted.
We can justly say that Goodchilds vission on GIS has undoubtedly changed through out the years thanks to technology; but we can also say that our vission on GIS has undoubtedly chagned thanks to Goodchild.
Hannah Barrueta
This is a really interesting topic, and it's kind of hard to imagine a future where all of this information could be so accessible and put together like Goodchild describes, but at the same time I see that there's lots of room for progress. It would be really interesting to be able to implement a whole range of disciplines (psychology, computer science, economics, etc.) like he describes, into a kind of interdisciplinary science that deals with spatial relationships. It would require a variety of knowledge, and I wonder if the open-source and social media movements on the Internet could be harnessed for this type of effort.
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