Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Recent developments in open geography

Steve Cisler, Open Geography: new tools and new initiatives, a preprint, June 5, 2007.  (Thanks to the IAPAD Bibliography.)  Excerpt:

In the past few years there has been a growing interest in digital mapping and the collection and use of geo-spatial information integrated with other kinds of information and media. The tools and commercial applications are suitable for use by nonprofessionals in a myriad of different contexts: social networks, web logs, multimedia presentations, and economic analyses....

The term “open” in a geospatial context is applied in five ways: to standards and organizations promoting them, development tools, data sets, public policies, and to the lowering of barriers for average users to make use of the tools and maps. In addition there is one open hardware development project. OpenMoko is the world’s first integrated open source mobile communications....