Provenance, Error and Uncertainty

Oct-10 : In this lesson, we will develop conceptual tools for describing and managing error and uncertainty.

Reading

Recall that the NASEM (2019) report chapter 3 included some discussion of error, precision, and uncertainty.

• Longley, P. A., M. F. Goodchild, D. J. Maguire, and D. W. Rhind. 2008. Geographical information systems and science 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley.
  • Chapter 6: Uncertainty, (pages 127-153)
• Tullis, J. A., and B. Kar. 2021. Where Is the Provenance? Ethical Replicability and Reproducibility in GIScience and Its Critical Applications. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 111 (5):1318–1328. DOI:10.1080/24694452.2020.1806029

Discussion / Blog Post

I am particularly interested in your interpretation and reaction to figure 6.1 in Longley et al (2008) with regards to the three questions/prompts below:

1. Do you have first-hand knowledge or experience with uncertainty in spatial/geographic research?
2. What responsibilities do geographers have with regards to uncertainty in research?
3. What strategies might geographers use to fulfill those responsibilities?

You could also use this blog post as a way to start synthesizing your observations from the Malcomb et al study by discussing sources of uncertainty in that study vis a vis figure 6.1 in Longley et al (2008).

Resources

• USGS Metadata Wizard 2.0 and installers
• ISO Standards for geographic information and metadata
• GeoNode is an open source geographic data server and metadata catalogue
• GeoNetwork is an open source geographic metadata catalogue server

References

These are not required reading.

• Aerts, J. C. J. H., M. F. Goodchild, and G. B. M. Heuvelink. 2003. Accounting for Spatial Uncertainty in Optimization with Spatial Decision Support Systems. Transactions in GIS 7 (2):211–230. DOI:10.1111/1467-9671.00141
• Delaney, J., and K. Van Niel. 2007. Error evaluation and tracking. In Geographical information systems: an introduction, 167–177. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Duckham, M., and J. Sharpe. 2005. Uncertainty and Geographic Information: Computational and Critical Convergence. In Re-presenting GIS, eds. P. Fisher and D. Unwin, 113–124. Chichester: J. Wiley.
• Schuurman, N. 2008. Database Ethnographies Using Social Science Methodologies to Enhance Data Analysis and Interpretation. Geography Compass 2 (5):1529–1548. DOI:10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00150.x
  • I suggest starting at the end of this paper, with the pragmatic Where are database ethnographies needed? section; then the first three subsections of Literatures that bear on database ethnographies: The proliferation of boundary objects, semantic data interoperability, and the role of tacit knowledge in scientific communities.

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