The catalytic boost of critical mass usage of the World Wide Web (WWW) has brought about the shift in the traditional geographic information systems (GIS) paradigm and engendered new challenges and opportunities. The traditional GIS paradigm involves the use of huge databases and large expensive GIS software packages confined to local disks. The new paradigm, however, enables geospatial data to...

This paper provides detailed examinations on the use of GIS in nonprofit organizations. We interviewed planners and GIS experts in key nonprofit organizations in the City of Chicago to comprehend their actual usages of GIS, faced challenges, and accumulated experiences. Organizations reported on dozens of projects where GIS was used for practical urban planning applications. Findings indicate t...

Virtual reality is becoming a popular tool to visualize 3D GIS data. Direct interaction with the GIS data, however, is often limited. In this paper, we present a multi-view approach to support 3D GIS interaction within VR-environments. This approach is implemented in the Karma VI system, using existing GIS and VR technology. We describe the multi-view approach, the system components and the int...

“Qualitative GIS – isn’t that kind of an oxymoron?” This comment from a colleague with years of experience working with GIS echoes the title of an editorial from an edition of Environment and Planning dedicated to the topic (Kwan and Knigge: 2006), and voices lingering concerns about the limitations of GIS. Qualitative GIS: A Mixed Methods Approach serves as an invitation to scholars in fields ...

Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning of applications of GIS which grant legitimacy to indigenous geographical knowledge as well as to ‘offi cial’ spatial data. By incorporating various forms of community participation these newer framings of Geographical Information Systems as ‘Participatory GIS’ (PGIS) offer a response to the critiques of GIS which were prevalent in the 1990s. This paper r...

The fuzziness-based uncertainty of GIS products is studied from objective and subjective aspects respectively in this paper. From the point of view of objective aspect, the fuzziness-based uncertainty of GIS products consists of items concerning the data sources of GIS products. From the point of view of subjective aspect, the fuzziness-based uncertainty of GIS products includes human’s apprais...

Most current natural language based Geographical Information Systems (GIS) still interact with the user with the “question-answer” model. They do not support users effectively because the communication between the user and the system is easy to be broken down due to the ambiguity nature of the natural language. The collaborative interaction model was proposed for GIS so that GIS could simulate ...

The implementation and development of effective mentoring is crucial to the growth and success of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) librarianship and staffi ng. Mentoring is necessary to fi ll the gaps for all staff members, especially students. I propose that mentoring can assuage many of the staffi ng obstacles to successful GIS programs. Effective mentoring will create a healthy and produ...

The development of fuzzy sets in geographic information systems (GIS) arose out of the need to handle uncertainty and the ability of soft computing technology to support fuzzy information processing. An overview of the fundamentals of fuzzy sets is used to illustrate its use in GIS. The use of some terms within both the GIS and fuzzy information processing community is clarified. Since one of t...