National Science Foundation
Systems for computer-assisted data collection in distributed environments have historically focused on architectures and tools for alphanumeric data and textual responses. However, field and office data collection applications commonly involve a spatial component. For example in many federal surveys, spatial data are used in selecting sample units from a larger geographic area and/or spatial data are collected to address survey objectives that involve geographic features. Alternatively, crisis management information gathering frequently involves documenting spatial relationships, for example in assessing the damage to natural and artificial structures caused by a severe storm, or in documenting the conditions leading to and resulting from a traffic accident.
The Internet introduces new opportunities and challenges to obtain digital spatial data layers for data collection efforts that include a spatial component. However, before these opportunities can be exploited, a framework is needed for development of digital systems and tools to serve, integrate, manipulate, and store digital spatial information for distributed data collection environments in which physical mobility is required or only modest computer environments are available. The principal investigators have substantial experience in many of the key components required to build the requisite infrastructures in a specific domain area of federal statistics (the federally-mandated Natural Resources Inventory) and in designing, building, and supporting systems that provide complex information resources across a national infrastructure. Based on this experience, the investigators believe that a collaborative effort among government, academia and industry is needed to refine these models, take advantage of rapidly changing computer science knowledge and technology, and generalize the model to advance both the specific domain and spatial data collection programs broadly.
The goals of this project are:
The specific plan would be to visit research groups that are actively investigating topics related to potential areas of application and to visit federal agencies that would benefit from developing such a framework. Several interested research groups have been identified including researchers at the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Discussions with federal agencies would be initiated by working representatives outlined in the Digital Government program announcement, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and agencies responsible for crisis management and criminal justice.
These interactions would be used to form an interdisciplinary working group that would: (1) submit a grant proposal to the Digital Government program in the spring of 1999, and (2) plan and host a community workshop designed to foster exchange and develop a broader integrated research agenda for areas that are related to dissemination, integration and storage of digital spatial data for data collection. Special efforts will be made to recruit women, minorities, and students as well as persons from government, academia and industry for full participation in this interdisciplinary workshop.
Last updated on December 14, 1998.
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