Resources for Exploring Public Participation GIS– update 12/18/08

a) Intended learning objectives

The UCGIS Body of Knowledge is a good place from which to extract appropriate ILO’s for a course in PPGIS. Under ‘GS3 Public use of geospatial information’ it lists the following:

GS3-1 Major uses of geospatial information and of land (and/or water) information

  • Describe common uses of geospatial information in governance, including ethical, security, aesthetic/scientific, and management uses

GS3-2 The role of land (and/or water) information in land (and/or water) administration

  • Identify the sources of geospatial and other data and information in the allocation of land and its resources
  • Explain the role of geospatial and other data and information in the allocation of land and its resources
  • Describe the kinds of land information that local governments create and maintain routinely, highlighting those kinds of data that are amenable to management and analysis with GIS
  • Describe the roles of federal government in the creation, dissemination, and use of geospatial data about land resources.
  • Describe the extent to which federal government activities complement or conflict with land information administered by state and local governmental agencies and private organizations
  • Explain how geospatial information might be used in a taking of private property through a government’s exercise of its right of eminent domain
  • Explain how geospatial information may be used to justify a taking of private property for a different private use of greater economic value

GS3-3 Public participation in legislating and administering

  • Describe the administrative process that involves interested parties in land use, resource allocation, and other planning decisions
  • Describe Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation
  • Identify the point on Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation at which citizens begin to have a chance to affect various actors and agencies involved in land use decisions
  • Differentiate among universal/deliberative, pluralist/representative, and participatory models of citizen participation in governance
  • Differentiate grassroots participation and community-initiated GIS from the broader field of public participation GIS
  • Defend or refute the contention that grassroots participation and community-initiated GIS accentuate the development of alternative ways of conceptualizing geographic information and the adaptation of new geographic technologies

GS3-4 Individual, group, and societal perspectives

  • Propose a strategy for soliciting “local knowledge” about a given land management issue
  • Describe the problem of distilling the spatial aspect of local knowledge
  • Explain how, and how well, local knowledge may be represented in a GIS
  • Exemplify a case in which local knowledge played a role in land use, resource allocation, and other planning decisions
  • Speculate on how local knowledge concerning a decision to locate a controversial land use (e.g., retail megastore, strip mall, strip mine, or halfway house) may vary by community
  • Explain how citizen participation improves local government planning processes and outcomes

b) Research Topics

a) Fundamental Concepts:

  • Theorizing empowerment, marginalization, participatory GIS, public participation GIS and critical GIS
  • Types of democracy and implications for public involvement
  • Virtual communities and physical communities in public participation GIS
  • Educational, social, political and economic barriers to access and exemplary ways communities have overcome these barriers
  • Politics and power relationships resulting from the use of GIS for decision making
  • Participatory, public, and group decision support

b) Methods and Systems:

  • Alternative GIS or GIS2?
  • Participatory use of GIS by public, stakeholder groups, and communities in group decision support
  • Modeling participatory processes
  • Incorporating alternative visual representations and multiple realities
  • Data models that reflect the values of local cultures
  • Role of spatial analyses in understanding/marginalizing communities

c) Applications of public participation GIS, participatory GIS, collaborative GIS:

  • Role of GIS in meeting the information needs of community groups
  • Implications of map-based representations of information for community groups
  • Bottom-up GIS
  • Emergency management GIS
  • other

c) ‘GIS & Society’ research meetings addressing PPGIS

Research agendas for PPGIS have been defined at a number of US Workshops, for example:

Varenius Workshop : GIS and Society (Harris and Weiner 1996)

Varenius Workshop: Empowerment, Marginalization and PPGIS (Craig, Harris, and Weiner 1998)

Varenius Workshop Geographies of the Information Society (Janelle and Hodge 1998) at

Varenius IJGIS summary and prospective article (Sheppard et al. 1999)

Information, Place, and Cyberspace (Janelle and Hodge 2000)

Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems (Craig, Harris, and Weiner 2002)

Special issue on GIS and Social Science in Cartographica (Schuurman and Kwan 2004)

UCGIS Research Agenda – chapter on GIS & Society (McMaster and Usery 2004)

Spatially integrated social science. Goodchild and Janelle (2004)

d) Possible Readings

A possible short set of readings:

Carver, Steve (2001) Participation and Geographic Information: a Position Paper. Available at

Elwood, Sarah (2006) Critical Issues in Participatory GIS: Deconstructions, Reconstructions, and New Research Directions. Transactions in GIS10:5, 693–708

Ghose, Rina (2007) Politics of Scale and Networks of Association in Public Participation GIS" Environment and Planning A 39(8) 1961 – 1980

Jankowski, Piotr , Steven Robischon, David Tuthill, Timothy Nyerges, Kevin Ramsey (2006) Design Considerations and Evaluation of a Collaborative, Spatio-Temporal Decision Support System. Transactions in GIS 10 (3), 335–354.

Nyerges, T. and P. Jankowski, 1997. Enhanced Adaptive Structuration Theory: A Theory of GIS supported Collaborative Decision Making, Geographical Systems, 4(3):225-259.

Sieber, Renee (2006) Public Participation Geographic Information Systems: A Literature Review and Framework. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96 (3), 491–507.

Bibliography

A very good place to start assembling a student or research bibliography is from that on ‘Geographies of the Information Society’ assembled by NCGIS/Project Varenius in 1998, which is available at:

What follows has been assembled from this and a variety of other places. It makes no claim to be comprehensive.

Abler, R.F. 1993. Everything in its place: GPS, GIS, and geography in the 1990's. Professional Geographer 45(2): 131-139.

Aitken, S. and Michel, S. 1995. Who Contrives the 'Real' in GIS? Geographic Information, Planning, and Critical Theory. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 22:17-29.

Aitken, S. 2002. Public participation, technological discourses, and the scale of GIS. In Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems, eds. W. Craig, T. Harris, and D. Weiner, pp. 357-366. London: Taylor & Francis

Al-Kodmany, K. 2000. Extending geographic information systems (GIS) to meet neighborhood planning needs: Recent developments in the work of the University of Illinois at Chicago. The URISA Journal 12(3): 19-37.

Armstrong, M. and Ruggles, A. 2006. Geographic information technologies and personal privacy. Cartographica 40(4): 63-74.

Barndt, M. 1998. “Public participation GIS: Barriers to implementation.” Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 25/2: 105-112.

Barndt, M. 2002. “A model for evaluating public participation GIS.” In Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems, eds. W. Craig, T. Harris, and D. Weiner. London: Taylor & Francis. 346-356.

Bell, S. and Reed, M. 2004. Adapting to the machine: Integrating GIS into qualitative research. Cartographica 39(1): 55-66.

Budic, Z. 1994. Effectiveness of geographic information systems in local planning. Journal of the American Planning Association 60 (2): 244-63.

Budic, Z., and D. R. Godschalk. 1996. Human Factors in Adoption of Geographic Information Systems (GIS): A Local Government Case Study. Public Administration Review 56 (6): 554-67.

Campbell, H. 1996. Theoretical perspectives on the diffusion of GIS technologies. In GIS Diffusion: The Adoption and Use of Geographical Information Systems in Local Government in Europe, eds. I. Masser, H. Campbell, and M. Craglia, pp.23-48. London: Taylor and Francis

Campbell, H. 1991. Organisational Issues in Managing Geographic Information. In Handling Geographic Information, eds. I. Masser and M. Blakemore. London: Longman. 259-282.

Chambers, K., Corbett, J., Keller, P., Wood, C. 2004. Indigenous Knowledge, Mapping, and GIS: A Diffusion Of Innovation Perspective. Cartographica 39(3).

Clark M J 1998. GIS- Democracy or Delusion? Environment and Planning A 30(2): 303-316.

Corbett, J. and Keller, P. 2006. An analytical framework to examine empowerment associated with participatory geographic information systems (PGIS). Cartographica 40(4): 91-102.

Couclelis, H. 2004. The third domain: The spread and use of GIS with social science. Cartographica 39(1): 17-24.

Crampton, J. 1995. The Ethics of GIS. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 22 (1): 84-89.

Curry, M. 1995. Rethinking Rights and Responsibilities in Geographic Information Systems: Beyond the Power of the Image. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 22 (1): 58-69.

Elwood, S. 2002. GIS and Collaborative Urban Governance: Understanding Their Implications For Community Action and Power. Urban Geography 22(8): 737-759.

Elwood, S. 2006. Critical Issues in Participatory GIS: Deconstructions, Reconstructions, and New Research Directions. Transactions in GIS 10(5): 693–708.

Elwood, S. 2006. Beyond cooptation or resistance: Urban spatial politics, community organizations, and GIS-based spatial narratives. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96(2): 323-341.

Elwood, S. and H. Leitner. 1998. GIS and community-based planning: Exploring the diversity of neighborhood perspectives and needs. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 25/2: 77-88.

Elwood, S. and H. Leitner. 2003. Community-based planning and GIS: Aligning neighborhood organizations with state priorities? Journal of Urban Affairs 25/2: 139-157.

Elwood, S. and R. Ghose. 2001. PPGIS in Community Development Planning: Framing the Organizational Context. Cartographica 38 (4): 19-33.

Esnard, A., Gelobter, M., Morales, X. 2001/2004. Environmental justice, GIS, and pedagogy. Cartographica 38(3/4): 53-61.

Fiedler, R., Schuurman, N., and Hyndman, J. 2005. Improving census-based socioeconomic GIS for public policy: Recent immigrants, spatially concentrated poverty and housing need in Vancouver.ACME 4(1): 145-171.

Ghose, R. 2001. Use of Information Technology for Community Empowerment: Transforming Geographic Information System into Community Information Systems. Transactions in GIS, 5(2): 141-163.

Ghose, R, (2003) Community participation, spatial kmowledge production, and GIS use in inner-city revitalization. Journal of Urban Technology, 10(1): 39-60

Ghose, R. 2007. Politics of Scale and Networks of Association in PPGIS. Environment and Planning A.

Ghose, R., and Huxhold, W. 2001. The Role of Local Contextual Factors in Building Public Participation GIS: The Milwaukee Experience. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 28(3): 195-208

Ghose R. and W. Huxhold. 2002. Role of multi-scalar GIS-based indicators studies in formulating neighborhood planning policy. The URISA Journal 14/2: 3-16.

Goodchild, M. 2000. Communicating geographic information in a digital age. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(2): 344-355.

Goss, J. 1995. `We know who you are and we know where you live’: The instrumental rationality of geodemographic systems. Economic Geography 71: 171-98.

Harris, T. and D. Weiner. 1998. Empowerment, marginalization, and community-oriented GIS. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 25/2: 67-76.

Harvey, F. and Chrisman N. 1998. Boundary Objects and the Social Construction of GIS Technology. Environment and Planning A 30: 1683-1694.

Harvey, F. 1997. National Cultural Differences in Theory and Practice: Evaluating Hofstede’s National Cultural Framework. Information Technology and People 10 (2): 132-146.

Harvey, F. 2001. Constructing GIS: Actor Networks of Collaboration. The URISA Journal 13(1): 29-38.

Harvey, F. and Chrisman, N. 2003 . The Imbrication of Geography and Technology: The Social Construction of Geographic Information Systems. In Techno Earth, ed. S. Brunn.

Harvey, F., Kwan, M., Pavlovskaya M. 2006. Introduction: Critical GIS. Cartographica 40(4): 1-3.

Henry, M. 2000.GIS: Computer planning tools for LHAs. Journal of Housing and community development. 57 (2): 26-27.

Hoeschele, W. 2000. Geographic information engineering and social ground truth in Attappadi, Kerala State, India. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(2): 293-321.

Hutchinson, C. F., and J. Toledano. 1993. Guidelines for Demonstrating Geographical Information Systems Based on Participatory Development. International Journal of Geographical Information Systems 7 (5): 453-61.

Innes, J. and D. Simpson. 1993. Implementing GIS for Planning: Lessons from the History of Technological Innovation. Journal of the American Planning Association 59 (2): 230-236.

Jankowski. P., 2000. Collaborative spatial decision making in environmental restoration management: an experimental approach. Journal of Hydroinformatics, 2:3, pp.197-206

Jankowski, P., T. Nyerges, A. Smith, T J Moore, and E. Horvath, 1997. Spatial Group Choice: A SDSS Tool for Collaborative Spatial Decision Making, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 11(6):577-602.

Jankowski, P. and Nyerges, T. 2001. GIS-Supported Collaborative Decision-Making: Results of an Experiment. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91(1): 48-70.

Jankowski, P. and T. Nyerges, 2001. GeoChoicePerspectives: A Collaborative Spatial Decision Support System, The Analytic Hierarchy Process in Natural Resource and Environmental Decision Making (eds.) Daniel L. Schmoldt, Jyrki Kangas, Guillermo Mendoza, and Mauno Pesonen, Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, Netherlands, 253-268.

Jankowski, P. and T. Nyerges. 2003. Towards a Framework for Research on Geographic Information-Supported Participatory Decision Making, Urban and Regional Information Systems Journal, vol. 15, pp. 9-17 (electronic version

Jankowski, P., T. Nyerges, S. Robischon, D. Tuthill, K. Ramsey. 2006 Design Considerations for Collaborative, Spatio-Temporal Decision Support Systems, Transactions in GIS, 10(3): 335–354

Keating, W. and Krumholz, N. 2000. Neighborhood Planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research 20(1): 111-114.

Kellogg, W. 1999. From the Field: Observations on Using GIS to Develop a Neighborhood Environmental Information Systems for Community-Based Organizations. URISA Journal 11(1): 15-32.

Kent, R. B. & Klosterman, R. E. 2000. GIS and Mapping: Pitfalls for Planners. Journal of the American Planning Association. 66 (2): 189 et seq.

Kyem, P. 2001/2004. Power, participation and inflexible institutions: An examination of the challenges to community empowerment in participatory GIS applications. Cartographica 38(3/4): 5-17.

Kyem, P. 2004. Of Intractable Conflicts and Participatory GIS Applications; The Search for Consensus Amidst Competing Claims and Institutional Demands. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94(1): 37–57.

Laituri, M. 2003. The issue of access: An assessment guide for evaluating public participation geographic information science case studies. Ensuring access to GIS for marginal societies. The URISA Journal 15(APAII):25-32.

Leitner, H., S. Elwood, E. Sheppard, S. McMaster, and R. McMaster. 2000. “Modes of GIS provision and their appropriateness for neighborhood organizations: Examples from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.” The URISA Journal 12/4: 43-56.

McLafferty, S. 2002. Mapping women’s worlds: Knowledge, power, and the bounds of GIS. Gender, Place and Culture 9(3): 263-269.

Martin, Eugene. 2000. Actor-Networks and Implementation: Examples from Conservation GIS in Ecuador. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 14 (8): 715-738.

Norheim, R. 2001/2004. How institutional culture affects results: Comparing two old growth forest mapping projects. Cartographica 38(3/4): 35-52.

Nedovic-Budic, Z. 1998. The impact of GIS technology. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 25/5: 681-692.

Nedovic-Budic, Z. and J. Pinto. 2000. Information Sharing in an Interorganizational GIS Environment. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 27 (3): 455-474.

Nyerges, T., K. Ramsey, and M. Wilson, 2006. Design Considerations for an Internet Portal to Support Public Participation in Transportation Improvement Decision Making, in Shivanand Balram and Suzana Dragicevic (eds.) Collaborative Geographic Information Systems, Idea Publishing, Hershey PA, pp. 208-230.

Nyerges, T. and P. Jankowski, 1997. Enhanced Adaptive Structuration Theory: A Theory of GIS-supported Collaborative Decision Making, Geographical Systems, 4(3):225-259.

Nyerges, T., P. Jankowski, and C. Drew, 2002. Data Gathering Strategies for Social-Behaviour Research about Participatory Geographic Information System Use, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 16(1):1-22

Nyerges, T., Jankowski, P., Tuthill, D., and Ramsey, K. 2006. Collaborative water resources decision support: Results of a field experiment. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96(4): 699-725.

Nyerges, T. and P. Jankowski. 2004. Toward a Participatory Geographic Information Science, in B. Wharf, K. Hansen, and D. Jannelle (eds.), WorldMinds: 100 Geographic Problems, Kluwer, Amsterdam, pp. 535-539.

Nyerges, T. and P. Jankowski, 2006. Participatory Geographic Information Science, in Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko and Matti Malkia (eds.) Encyclopedia of Digital Government, Idea Group Inc, v. III, 1314-1318.

Nyerges, T., R. Montejano. C. Oshiro, and M. Dadswell, 1998. Group-based Geographic Information Systems for Transportation Site Selection, Transportation Research C: Emerging Technologies,5(6):349-369

Nyerges, T., T J Moore, R. Montejano, M. Compton, 1998. Interaction Coding Systems for Studying the Use of Groupware, Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 13(2):127-165.

Nyerges, T. and M. Patrick, 2007. Rethinking Public Participation as Instant Access to Virtual Meetings, in H. Miller (ed.) Societies and Cities in the Age of Instant Access, Dordrecht, Springer, 331-342.

Nyerges, T., M. Robkin, and T. J. Moore. 1997. Geographic Information Systems for Risk Evaluation: Perspectives on Applications to Environmental Health. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 24 (3):123-144.

Obermeyer, N. J. 1995. The Hidden GIS Technocracy. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 22 (1): 78-83

Obermeyer, N. 1998. The evolution of public participation GIS. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 25(2): 65-66.

Onsrud, H. J. 1995. Identifying Unethical Conduct in the Use of GIS. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 22 (1): 90-97.

Openshaw, S. 1991. A view on the GIs crisis in geography, or, using GIs to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. Environment and Planning A 23: 621-628.

Openshaw, S. 1992. Further thoughts on geography and GIS--a reply. Environment and Planning A 24: 463-466.

Pavlovskaya, M. 2002. Mapping urban change and changing GIS: Other views of economic restructuring. Gender, Place and Culture 9(3): 281-289.

Pratt, G. and N. Schuurman. 2002. Care of the subject: Feminism and critiques of GIS. Gender, Place and Culture 9(3): 291-299.

Queralt-M; & Witte-A.D. 1998. A map for you? Geographic information systems in the social services. Social Work.43(5), 455-469.

Ramasubramanian, L. 1999. GIS Implementation in Developing Countries: Learning from Organizational Theory and Reflective Practice. Transactions in GIS 3(4): 359-380.

Rundstrom. R. 1995. GIS, Indigenous Peoples, and Epistemological Diversity. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 22:45-57.

Sawicki, D. and W. Craig. 1996. The Democratization of Data: Bridging the Gap for Community Groups. Journal of the American Planning Association 62(4): 512-523.

Sawicki, D. & Flynn, P. 1996. Neighborhood indicators: A Review of the literature and an assessment of conceptual and methodological issues. Journal of the American Planning Association.

Schuurman, N. 2006. Social perspectives on semantic interoperability: Constraints on geographical knowledge from a data perspective. Cartographica 40(4): 47-61.

Schuurman, N. and Kwan, M. 2004. Taking a walk on the social side of GIS. Cartographica 39(1): 1-3.

Sheppard, E. 1993. Automated geography: What kind of geography for what kind of society? The Professional Geographer 45 (4): 457-60.

Sheppard, Eric. 1995. GIS and Society: Towards a Research Agenda. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 22: 5-16.

Shiffer, M. 1998. Multimedia GIS for Planning Support and Public Discourse. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 25(2): 89-94.

Sieber, R. 2000. “GIS implementation in the grassroots.” URISA Journal 12/1: 15-51.

Sieber, R. 2001/2004. A PPGIScience? Cartographica 38(3/4): 1-4.

Sieber, R. 2000. “Confronting the opposition: The social construction of geographical information systems in social movements.” International Journal of Geographic Information Systems 14/8: 775-793.

Sieber, R. 2004. Rewiring for a GIS/2. Cartographica 39(1): 25-40.

Sieber, R. 2006. Public participation geographic information systems: A literature review and framework. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96(3): 491-507.

Somers, R. 1998. Developing GIS Management Strategies for an Organization. Journal of Housing Research 9(1): 157-178.

Stonich, S. 1998. Information Technologies, Advocacy, and Development: Resistance and Backlash to Industrial Shrimp Farming. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 25(2): 113-122.

Sui, D. 2004. GIS, Cartography, and the “Third Culture”: Geographical Imagination in the Comuter Age. The Professional Geographer 56(1): 62-72.

Talen, E. 1998. Visualizing Fairness. Equity Maps for Planners. Journal of the American Planning Association 64 (1): 22-38.

Talen, E. 2000. Bottom-Up GIS: A New Tool for Individual and Group Expression in Participatory Planning. Journal of the American Planning Association 66(3): 279-294.

Taylor, P. and Johnston, R. 1995. GIS and Geography. The Social Implications of Geographic Information Systems, ed. J. Pickles, pp. 51-67. New York: Guilford.

Taylor, P. J. and Overton, M. 1991. Further thoughts on geography and GIS--a preemptive strike. Environment and Planning A 23: 1087-1090.