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Geographic Information Science

Public Participation GIS

Instructor: Dr. Dawn Wright, dawn@dusk.geo.orst.edu, 114 Wilkinson, 737-1229

Course Overview: Are you interested in community-based GIS, GIS for citizen involvement, conservation GIS with NGOs and citizen groups? Grassroots GIS? Issues of empowerment and marginalization where GIS and mapping are concerned? Then this course may be for you!

The goal of "Public Participation GIS" seminar will be to cover the range of topics raised by the intersection of community interests and GIS technology. As a vehicle for achieving this goal, students will read and discuss papers in a seminar format but also participate in group projects with local community groups.

Most of the course will function as a "virtual seminar" offered to universities in the 70-member University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), of which OSU is a founding member. Most of the content will be coordinated by the World Universities Network (WUN) Global GIS Academy. During a significant part of this course you will be "in class" on the web with lecturers and students from across the country at other UCGIS institutions, as well as institutions in the U.K and the Netherlands. Other media, including desktop web conferencing software and streaming video, will also be employed.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing at OSU or enrollment in the GISci Professional Certificate Program.

This course will also be accepted as an elective in the geographic information science (GIScience) concentration within the geography M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs or as an elective in the graduate and professional certificate programs in GIScience.

Assignments: Readings and assignments will be provided on the web. You will be expected to lead discussion on one paper, to contribute to class discussions and web conferences, and to contribute to a group project due at the end of the term.

Learning Outcomes: The following intended learning outcomes for this course fall under various categories in the UCGIS GIS & T Body of Knowledge:

• GS3 Public use of geospatial information
  GS3-1 Major uses of geospatial information and of land information
  Students should be able to describe the common uses of geospatial information in governance, including ethical, security, aesthetic/scientific, and management uses.
• GS3-3 Public participation in legislating and administering
  Students should be able to differentiate grassroots participation and community-initiated GIS from the broader field of participatory GIS.
  They should be able to 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
  By way of group discussions and a term project of their choice, students should be able to:
  • Propose a strategy for soliciting “local knowledge” about a given resource 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, coastal/ocean use, resource allocation, or 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.

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