TY - GEN
T1 - Improving multi-purpose GIS design
T2 - 3rd Biennial Conference on Spatial Information Theory, COSIT 1997
AU - Harvey, Francis
PY - 1997/1/1
Y1 - 1997/1/1
N2 - Crucial to the design of multi-purpose GIS is the identification of semantical differences and commonalties between the concepts held by participants. Design involves communication between the diverse groups of participants as they mitigate their differences, find common understandings, and find coherency. It is a process of negotiating semantics. The socio-technological design methodology I present here, participatory design, is a process of negotiation and construction involving participants cultures. This process of elaborating semantics retains the essential characteristics of each culture's world-view and simultaneously connects and relates a wide range of aspects. Drawing on sociology of science literature, I refer to the artifacts and concepts that connect different cultures and world-views as boundary objects. As commonalties, portals, or differences, they represent points of tangency between different cultural, disciplinary, and organizational world-views. Through metaphors and morphisms, boundary objects are refined as the basis for collective and collaborative action. In this paper I review the underlying theoretical work on boundary objects and describe its extension for multi-purpose GIS design. For an example of multi-purpose and multi-participant GIS I show how participative design can aid GIS design by finding semantical coherency for stable multi-purpose GIS.
AB - Crucial to the design of multi-purpose GIS is the identification of semantical differences and commonalties between the concepts held by participants. Design involves communication between the diverse groups of participants as they mitigate their differences, find common understandings, and find coherency. It is a process of negotiating semantics. The socio-technological design methodology I present here, participatory design, is a process of negotiation and construction involving participants cultures. This process of elaborating semantics retains the essential characteristics of each culture's world-view and simultaneously connects and relates a wide range of aspects. Drawing on sociology of science literature, I refer to the artifacts and concepts that connect different cultures and world-views as boundary objects. As commonalties, portals, or differences, they represent points of tangency between different cultural, disciplinary, and organizational world-views. Through metaphors and morphisms, boundary objects are refined as the basis for collective and collaborative action. In this paper I review the underlying theoretical work on boundary objects and describe its extension for multi-purpose GIS design. For an example of multi-purpose and multi-participant GIS I show how participative design can aid GIS design by finding semantical coherency for stable multi-purpose GIS.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:65149105334
SN - 3540636234
SN - 9783540636236
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 313
EP - 328
BT - Spatial Information Theory
PB - Springer- Verlag
Y2 - 15 October 1997 through 18 October 1997
ER -