Scientific Applications of Online Geoprocessing Technology

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Scientific Applications of Online
Geoprocessing Technology A Review

• Barbara Hofer
• Department of Geoinformatics Z_GIS,
• University of Salzburg, Austria
• AGILE Workshop Geoprocessing on the Web, 3 June
  2014

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Outline

• Motivation Reach of online geoprocessing
  technology
• Methodology Systematic analysis of publications
• Results Few applications in scientific
  context
• Issues Community building, usability issues
• Future work Error prevention to increase
  usability

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Advantages of Online Geoprocessing



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Motivation of a Review Technology as Keyword

• The use of GIS for monitoring and predicting
  urban growth in East and West St Paul, Winnipeg,
  Manitoba, Canada (Hathout 2002)
• Use of GIS for estimating potential and actual
  forest biomass for continental South and
  Southeast Asia (Iverson et al. 1994)
• Use of GIS-based models for integrating and
  developing marine fish cages within the tourism
  industry in Tenerife (Canary Islands) (Perez et
  al. 2003)
• Modeling urban dynamics through GIS-based
  cellular automata (Batty et al. 1999)

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Bibliometric Analysis

• Questions
• How many applications of online geoprocessing
  technology in research contexts exist?
• Which types of applications can be
  differentiated?
• Approach
• Bibliometric analysis using Scopus (Elsevier)

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Bibliometric Analysis cont.
Keyword set GIS
geospatial
geoinformation
geographic information
geodata
spatial data
geographic information system
geographical information system
GIS
geoprocessing
geocomputation
spatial analysis
spatial data infrastructure
Keyword set online geoprocessing
e-Science
cyberinfrastructure
geoprocessing web
geospatial web
model web
web-based
Internet-based
web service
service oriented architecture
web processing service
web feature service
web map service
web coverage service
sensor observation service
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Applications of Online Geoprocessing

• Identification of application type
• Direct reference to online geoprocessing
• Assessment of scope of article

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Categorization of Applications
Service platforms
Theme-specific platforms
General purpose processing tools
Stand-alone functionality
Data provision services
Specific processing functionality
Models as services
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Results
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Results (cont.)

• One example for a theme specific platform
• Dominkovics et al. (2011) support the analysis of
  tuberculosis cases in Barcelona, Spain with
  density maps that are produced with web-based
  geospatial services.
• Some observations
• Thematic bundling of operations seems useful
• SOA as technological principle
• Not necessarily sharing of services taking place
• Further adaptation of tools reported in the
  articles

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Results (cont.)

• Example for the use of general purpose
  functionality
• Shook et al. (2012) create emotional heatmaps for
  the topics armed conflict based on Wikipedia
  entries.
• Data intensive visual analytics
• Interpolation of data to heatmaps
• The platform used is the CyberGIS platform (Wang
  2010)
• Research required the use of a cyberinfrastructure
  

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User Perspective

• As with any deployment of information
  technology, it cannot be assumed that just
  because tools are provided they will be used
  (Poore 2011, p.5510).
• the problems of learning and membership in a
  community that are critical to infrastructure
  development remain (Poore 2011, p.5514).

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Usability Studies Views of Poore (2011)

• Usability studies must consider
• Work practices
• Articulations of users
• Tacit knowledge
• GIScience approaches need to be extended
• More than map interface studies required
• Usability of all the system

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Proposed Work Error Prevention

• Stasch et al. 2014 Meaningful Spatial Prediction
  and Aggregation
• Formalization of operations
• Extension of process profiles

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Summary

• Literature-based analysis of applications of
  online geoprocessing
• Limited number of applications documented
• Differentiation of application types
• Request for usability considerations
• Error prevention through feedback

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Thank you for your attention!

• Barbara Hofer
• barbara.hofer_at_sbg.ac.at
• Department of Geoinformatics Z_GIS, University
  of Salzburg, Austria
• AGILE Workshop Geoprocessing on the Web, 3 June
  2014

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References

• Dominkovics, P., C. Granell, A. Pérez-Navarro, M.
  Casals, Á. Orcau and J.A. Caylà 2011. Development
  of spatial density maps based on geoprocessing
  web services Application to tuberculosis
  incidence in barcelona, spain. International
  Journal of Health Geographics 10.
• B. S. Poore, "Users as essential contributors to
  spatial cyberinfrastructures," Proceedings of the
  National Academy of Sciences of the United States
  of America, vol. 108, pp. 5510-5515, 2011.
• Shook, E., K. Leetaru, G. Cao, A. Padmanabhan and
  S. Wang. 2012. Happy or not Generating
  topic-based emotional heatmaps for culturomics
  using cybergis.
• Stasch, C., S. Scheider, E. Pebesma, W. Kuhn,
  2014. Meaningful Spatial Prediction and
  Aggregation. Environmental Modelling Software,
  51, (149165, open access).
• Wang, S. 2010. A cybergis framework for the
  synthesis of cyberinfrastructure, gis, and
  spatial analysis. Annals of the Association of
  American Geographers 100, no. 3 535-57.