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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 702–708Cite as

Crowdsourcing Geographic Information Systems

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Synonyms

User-generated geospatial content; Volunteered geographic information (VGI)

Definition

The crowdsourcing of geographic information addresses the collection of geospatial data contributed by non-expert users and the aggregation of these data into meaningful geospatial datasets. While crowdsourcing generally implies a coordinated bottom-up grassroots effort to contribute information, in the context of geospatial data, the term volunteered geographic information (VGI) specifically refers to a dedicated collection effort inviting non-expert users to contribute. A prominent example here is the OpenStreetMap effort focusing on map datasets. Crowdsourcing geospatial data is an evolving research area that covers efforts ranging from mining GPS tracking data to using social media content to profile population dynamics.

Historical Background

With the proliferation of the Internet as the primary medium for data publishing and information exchange, we have seen an explosion in the amount...

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Recommended Reading

  1. Adams B, McKenzie G. Inferring thematic places from spatially referenced natural language descriptions. In: Sui D, Elwood S, Goodchild M, Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge: Volunteered Geographic Information, editors, Crowdsourcing geographic knowledge: Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in theory and practice. Netherlands: Springer; 2013, p. 201--21.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Dieter Pfoser

Authors
  1. Dieter Pfoser
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dieter Pfoser .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Computer Science, University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany

    Ralf Hartmut Güting

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Pfoser, D. (2018). Crowdsourcing Geographic Information Systems. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_80607

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