Sunday, February 15, 2015

Collaborative GIS

Significant challenges remain for scholars and practitioners’’ thinking towards a new style of environmental and resource management. In an effort to work for economic, social and ecological balance, these parties have resort to collaboration with technical, scientific and business experts (along with many other experts) in order to reach this goal. GIS has become a “way to help bridge these divides” within the world. Specifically Collaborative GIS (CGIS), a networked collection of computer technology that allows participants to share information in an institutional setting that can help serve the purpose of managing resources and environmental issues efficiently.


CGIS can be very helpful in numerous ways, whether it is to provide information to another expert or scholar, or to help out someone in need of information for another project, it is like a huge network that everyone contributes to in order to help each other out. In many cases, CGIS can provide useful information; however on occasions, the information may not be as helpful as it seems. Based on who uses it, and how well the information’s validity and reliability is, will determine how well it is. It is important not to abuse CGIS by not providing inaccurate information and only providing useful, reliable information for others to use.




Ramsey, K. (2009). GIS, modeling, and politics: On the tensions of collaborative decision support. Journal of Environmental Management, 90(6), 1972-1980.

4 comments:

  1. Could it be said that we as a class are engaging in collaborative GIS? I think so because we've created maps and data that the GIS community at large can view, and we've used data created by others in our labs.

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  2. How is collaborative GIS helpful and who exactly does it help? Is Volunteered Geographic Information a form of CGIS? What are some of the problems posed by a collaborative GIS system and how could inaccurate information harm those trying to benefit from CGIS data?

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  3. How do you, or this study, define "useful" information? Information and empirical education and study is based off of elaborating or exploring previously innocuous areas or understudied phenomena. If we limit information collection now to what we deem as "useful", won't that establish an information gap that impacts GIS and spacial analysis in the future?

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  4. How can you prove that CGIS is helpful. Are you providing that information by personal experience or has there been a survey?

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