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Usability evaluation of collaborative PPGIS-GeoCWMI for supporting public participation during municipal planning and management services

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Abstract

This paper focuses on evaluating usability of a Geospatial-enabled Collaborative Web Mapsharing Infrastructure (GeoCWMI), which is developed for real-time mapsharing system application as part of a municipality planning and management services. This study aims to evaluate the usability of two major GIS-enabled Public Participation System (PPS) as prototypes to determine: (i) the extent to which the proposed platform of real-time mapsharing will enable and increase public participation, and (ii) how any municipality and/or planner interacts with the prototype. In other words, how can decision-making and municipal planning processes be enhanced via a synchronized and collaborative public participation GIS (Co-PPGIS)? A mock case study scenario discussed the use of Co-PPGIS prototype components (GeoCWMI and Web Online Participatory GIS) followed by the discussion of public participation concepts, existing practice of participation, evaluation of existing PPGIS application, and proposed infrastructure. The mock case is tested during planning and development scenario where the users are asked to provide the real-time collaborative feedback in terms of rich multimedia and mapsharing. In addition, the users are asked to provide collaborative feedback with suggestions for future urban expansion regarding potential sites in the York Region, Canada. The datasets on GeoCWMI usability have been collected using a Web-enabled feedback/questionnaire system, Team Viewer, Google Analytics, Session Cam, and Hit Sniffer software. The study shows that there are significant differences in the GeoCWMI usability among the different groups of participants in relation to their education, Web experience, and participatory practices and are more usable for users with GIS/Web experience. The study contributes awareness for researchers on how to improve PPGIS applications, e.g., it is noticed that readability of Web contents may influence the results. It is important to test the usability of GeoCWMI so that future researchers may need to avoid the similar kind of problems while designing new PPGIS applications. The results of this work may contribute to existing public participation practices, to municipal planning, to decision-making or to geographic information science.

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Notes

  1. The regional municipality of York has selected three potential sites for amendments in the town of East Gwillimbury, Markham, and the city of Vaughn in York Region.

  2. The Co-PPGIS asynchronous participatory approach-based prototype components, i.e., WOLPgis blog and GIS-based discussion forum can be accessed at: http://geoiris.org/wolpgis-f/ and http://geoiris.org/prism.

  3. The real-time collaborative GIS-based processes, i.e., MapSharing, mechanism, etc. can be watched at: http://geoiris.org/video.

  4. The different versions of the Co-PPGIS GeoCWMI prototypes which were used for the usability evaluation can be accessed at: http://geoiris.org/geomeet1, http://geoiris.org/geomeet2, http://geoiris.org/geomeet4, http://geoiris.org/geomeet5.

  5. Visit http://coppgis.com:6060/geowebex, http://coppgis.com/coppgis, and http://coppgis.com:8080 to understand the Co-PPGIS room privacy mechanism.

  6. Visit http://coppgis.com:8080 and after login click “plan a meeting” tab/button, which allows a participant to create events and to send notifications for ongoing or upcoming municipality projects related meetings

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5B 2K3

    Muhammad A. Butt & Songnian Li

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  1. Muhammad A. Butt
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Butt, M.A., Li, S. Usability evaluation of collaborative PPGIS-GeoCWMI for supporting public participation during municipal planning and management services. Appl Geomat 7, 139–161 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12518-014-0141-0

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