Reflections on open activities using Rey and Sui

Sui's paper talks about how Open GIS can contribute meaningfully to collective science if it ceases to be only about the use of open source software and embraces its 8 dimensions: open hardware, open standards, open research, open publication, open funding, open education, open data and open software (Sui, pg.4). In our winter hazards mapping exercise we all contributed data to the Ushahidi platform which accounts for the open data dimension. Although the data that was collected during that exercise is important and fun, it needs to be "cleaned up" by a member of the community that would be able to assess it and perhaps keep the observations as part of the genealogy of the data, but, by adding another field, synthesize the data into keywords that would make it more accessible for users outside of Middlebury and in general make the data more interoperable. In that sense, it would become usable to people that, perhaps, want to make a NESCAC-wide evaluation of winter campus risk and its impact on, let's say student-athlete injury. By using Ushahidi we have already made the data accessible/open, but we have not necessarily made it understandable or even assessable (by disclosing the full conditions under which the data was collected for example). In that sense, the data we have created has does not pass all the levels of openness used to evaluate open data (Sui, pg.4) but it's a good start. (Alyne G.)

Opportunities and Impediments for Open GIS: This article investigates the progress of GIS systems, with special attention to the movement towards open-source GIS. Daniel Sui asserts that while the evolution and growth of open-sourced software is indeed important, the issue is in reality much broader, encompassing eight specific facets of open GIS and pertaining to the development of an open-source culture. Although I was intrigued by aspects of each of the eight dimensions of Open-GIS culture, I was especially interested by the ideas of open science and open publication. Open science, though not explicitly defined in the article, involves the combining forces of scholars and the transparency in data collection and experimental methodology. I feel like these two concepts significantly reflect the importances of open-sourcing a program, as they touch on the interdisciplinary aspect of its use, as well as the integrity of its data processing. That said, I was struck by the fact that these two ideas had to be explicitly stated as relating to open-sourcing GIS, as I feel like they should be baseline standards across all sciences if we hope to continue to make scientific progress in all realms of our world. I was also particularly interested by the concept of open publication. I believe there is great value in having articles reviewed by both experts and non-experts, especially when the goals of the articles are to be accessible to the greater and most diverse set of people possible. I found the idea of live editing to be fascinating because I think it could simultaneously be useful and hindering. I like the idea that this practice could stimulate real-time discourse on issues among readers; however, I wonder how easy it would be to have an overseer/editor that ensured that incorrect or problematic content would not surface. Sui continues to propose that we are for the first time as human beings, witnessing and partaking in the development of a “spatial century.” This new era will be characterized by the use of geospatial information in problem-solving across all realms of society. I think this is a very cool concept, because geospatial data reveals important societal patterns and problems in a very useful way, and there is great potential to make this information palatable to the general public. Rey’s article addresses the junction of open-source with current academic spatial analysis. Rey asserts that there is great potential for the cross-pollination between the two disciplines, and that this would be valuable for the development of both communities. That said, there exist many false beliefs from both sides about the other, which is currently hindering their collaboration. With these two articles in mind, I think the idea of this course is incredibly valuable in our college educations. I believe that we will essentially be the trailblazers for more intertwined communities of spatial analysis and open source software/culture. The only way to even begin to foster this relationship is by teaching open source in a hands-on college environment. I believe the activities we’ve done in this course, such as contributing to the hazard map and the wiki were extremely important in learning about open-source GIS, because they allowed us to participate in the public information gathering processes that are so central to the concept of open-source. They allowed us to better identify the benefits of collaborative data contribution, as well as the potential drawbacks. When working with the hazard map and the wiki, I felt like I got a glimpse of what it feels like to be a real part of the open source community, which was incredibly valuable. (Matia)