Abstract

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is an existing tool to create, manage, analyze and visualize data with a spatial component, and is used by many types of organizations in many fields. For most of the tasks and projects within these fields, a GIS provides highly accurate results. Under certain circumstances (Massive Scope, Widespread Expertise and Multivalency), a GIS fails to provide adequate results in the field of historical geography, for example. Crowdsourcing tools like Wikipedia and Open Street Map (OSM) address some of these issues, but not all, and introduce new problems. This project focuses on geographic data dealing with historical events, places and people. This project uses a wiki software package, extensions for added functionality, and customized tools to implement a scoring system to rate the accuracy of each assertion made by members of the contribution community. The scoring system addresses the ambivalence of the data created by a community.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Geography

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2010-04-20

Document Type

Selected Project

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd3555

Keywords

collaboration, volunteered geographic information, historical geography

Language

English

Included in

Geography Commons

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