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Metadata Squared: Enhancing Its Usability for Volunteered Geographic Information and the GeoWeb

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Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge

Abstract

The Internet has brought many changes to the way geographic information is created and shared. One aspect that has not changed is metadata. Static spatial data quality descriptions were standardized in the mid-1990s and cannot accommodate the current climate of data creation where nonexperts are using mobile phones and other location-based devices on a continuous basis to contribute data to Internet mapping platforms. The usability of standard geospatial metadata is being questioned by academics and neogeographers alike. This chapter analyzes current discussions of metadata to demonstrate how the media shift that is occurring has affected requirements for metadata. Two case studies of metadata use are presented—online sharing of environmental information through a regional spatial data infrastructure in the early 2000s, and new types of metadata that are being used today in OpenStreetMap, a map of the world created entirely by volunteers. Changes in metadata requirements are examined for usability, the ease with which metadata supports coproduction of data by communities of users, how metadata enhances findability, and how the relationship between metadata and data has changed. We argue that traditional metadata associated with spatial data infrastructures is inadequate and suggest several research avenues to make this type of metadata more interactive and effective in the GeoWeb.

Arguably, given the rich interactivity of geographic information, usability applies not only to the systems but also to the content of those systems: the structure and portrayal of the data and metadata within them. This is where the usability industry is relatively weak, and therefore where one of the biggest research challenges lies. (Davies et al. 2005)

In the earlier world dominated by paper maps the body of information described by metadata was a single map, and an intimate association existed between a map’s contents and its marginalia. In the digital world, however, the concept of a data set is much more fluid. (Goodchild 2007a)

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Daniel Sui, Michael Goodchild, and Sarah Elwood for the invitation to submit this chapter to the volume on volunteered geographic information. We thank Peter Schweitzer, Martin van Exel, and two anonymous reviewers for helping us improve the structure and concepts of the paper.

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  1. Center of Excellence in GIScience, U.S. Geological Survey, Saint Petersburg, FL, USA

    Barbara S. Poore & Eric B. Wolf

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  1. Barbara S. Poore
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Correspondence to Barbara S. Poore .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Geography, Ohio State University, N. Oval Mall 154, Columbus, 43210, Ohio, USA

    Daniel Sui

  2. Dept. Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195-3550, Washington, USA

    Sarah Elwood

  3. College of Letters & Science, Dept. Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, 93106-4060, California, USA

    Michael Goodchild

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Poore, B.S., Wolf, E.B. (2013). Metadata Squared: Enhancing Its Usability for Volunteered Geographic Information and the GeoWeb. In: Sui, D., Elwood, S., Goodchild, M. (eds) Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4587-2_4

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