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This page provides research initiatives or priorities sited from National Center for Geographic Information & Analysis (NCGIA) and University Consortium of Geographic Information Science (UCGIS).

Research Initiatives sited from NCGIA:

  • Accuracy of spatial database: focusing on methods and techniques for dealing with error and uncertainty in geographical data; aiming to improve models of uncertainty, to develop methods for tracking and encoding errors in databases, to formulate methods of computing and communicating error in GIS products, and to develop policies that encourage the implementation of accuracy assessment.
  • Languages of spatial relationships: aiming to develop an appropriate fundamental theory of spatial relations using natural language and mathematics, based on the formalization of geometric concepts as they are used in GIS and the cognitive aspects of spatial relations.
  • Multiple representations: aiming to develop the roles to  to ensure consistency and accuracy in cartographic and other forms of generalization, in order to meet the need of organizing multiple topological and metrical versions of the same data for efficient access, and implementing linkages between multiple representations.
  • The use and value of geographic information: aiming to improve models for tracking the use of geographic information, to expand methods for assessing the value and benefits of geographic information, to formulate methods for better understanding the factors and processes affecting acquisition, implementation, and utilization of geographic information innovations, and to advance methods for modeling the diffusion of geographic information technologies.
  • Architecture of very large spatial dataset: aiming to develop new approaches to the effective processing, storage, manipulation and analysis of large spatial datasets, including data models, structures, algorithms and user interfaces.
  • Spatial Decision Support System: focusing on the optimal schema for decision support in areas of ill-defined problem-solving; modeling and data requirements; technology and implementation; and user requirements and organizational issues.
  • Visualizing the quality of spatial information: focusing on effective means of managing and visually communicating components of data quality to researchers, decision-makers, and users of spatial information, particularly in the context of GIS.
  • Formalizing cartographic knowledge: including cartographic language, evaluation of design, knowledge acquisition/elicitation structuring/modeling knowledge.
  • Institutions sharing geographic information: focusing on the studies of theories of individual and organizational behavior and the arenas among which sharing of spatial data occurs, could occur, or could be enhanced; and observations of the process of spatial data sharing in existing settings.
  • Spatio-temperal reasoning in GIS: aiming to study spatial applications to identify properties of different time concepts, explore alternative mathematical formalizations to Cartesian coordinates and Euclidean geometry, build computational frameworks and examine computational reasoning methods.
  • Integration of remote sensing & GIS
     
  • User Interfaces for GIS
     
  • GIS & Spatial Analysis
     
  • Multiple roles for GIS in U. S. global change research
     
  • Law, information policy & spatial databases
     
  • Collaborative spatial decision-making
     
  • The social implications of how people, space & environment are represented in GIS
     
  • Interoperating GIS's
     
  • Formal models of the common-sense geographic world



Research Priorities sited from UCGIS

  • Cognition of geographic information
  • Spatial data acquisition and integration
  • Spatial analysis in a GIS environment
  • Interoperability of geographic information
  • Distributed computing
  • Future of the spatial information infrastructure
  • GIS and society
  • Uncertainty in geographic data and GIS-based activities
  • Extensions to geographic representations





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Department of Geography, San Diego State University