Building location-based mass collaboration systems: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

With the rise of Web 2.0 and social computing, we have been witnessing a revolution in the way spatial information is being accessed and utilized. However, the paradigm that governs the generation of spatial information products such as GIS applications has not changed much. The rise of web-based mass collaboration offers an opportunity to develop a new paradigm for creating and sharing spatial information products. To illustrate this, we developed wikiGIS, a location-based mass collaboration system that is designed to generate spatial knowledge products through self-organization, decentralization, and peer-to-peer mass collaboration. Open source software tools provide a natural fit for implementing such location - based mass collaboration systems. In this paper we review the design and development of wikiGIS, analyse the suitability of existing open source tools, and identify key challenges for tools that support location-based mass collaboration systems.