Unpacking the “I” in GIS: Information, Ontology, and the Geographic World

Abstract

As a tool dealing with information rather than matter, GIS shares with other information technologies the conceptual challenges of its medium. For a number of years now, ontology development has helped harness the complexity of the notion of information and has emerged as an effective means for improving the fitness for use of information products. More recently, the broadening range of users and user needs has led to increasing calls for “lightweight” ontologies very different in structure, expressivity, and scope from the traditional foundational or domain-oriented ones. This paper outlines a conceptual model suitable for generating micro-ontologies of geographic information tailored to specific user needs and purposes, while avoiding the traps of relativism that ad hoc efforts might engender. The model focuses on the notion of information decomposed into three interrelated “views”: that of measurements and formal operations on these, that of semantics that provide the meaning, and that of the context within which the information is interpreted and used. Together, these three aspects enable the construction of micro-ontologies, which correspond to user-motivated selections of measurements to fit particular, task-specific interpretations. The model supersedes the conceptual framework previously proposed by the author (Couclelis, Int J Geogr Inf Sci 24(12):1785–1809, 2010), which now becomes the semantic view. In its new role, the former framework allows informational threads to be traced through a nested sequence of layers of decreasing semantic richness, guided by user purpose. “Purpose” is here seen as both the interface between micro-ontologies and the social world that motivates user needs and perspectives, and as the primary principle in the selection and interpretation of Information most appropriate for the representational task at hand. Thus, the “I” in GIS also stands for the Individual whose need the tool serves.