Grounded Design and GIScience - A framework for informing the design of geographical information systems and spatial data infrastructures
Author and article information
Abstract
Geographical Information Science (GIScience), also Geographical Information Science and Systems, is a multi-faceted research discipline and comprises a wide variety of topics. Investigation into data management and interoperability of geographical data and environmental data sets for scientific analysis, visualisation and modelling is an important driver of the Information Science aspect of GIScience, that underpins comprehensive Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) research and development. In this article we present the 'Grounded Design' method, a fusion of Design Science Research (DSR) and Grounded Theory (GT), and how they can act as guiding principles to link GIScience, Computer Science and Earth Sciences into a converging GI systems development framework. We explain how this bottom-up research framework can yield holistic and integrated perspectives when designing GIS and SDI systems and software. This would allow GIScience academics, GIS and SDI practitioners alike to reliably draw from interdisciplinary knowledge to consistently design and innovate GI systems.
Cite this as
2019. Grounded Design and GIScience - A framework for informing the design of geographical information systems and spatial data infrastructures. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27822v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27822v1Author comment
This is a submission to PeerJ Computer Science for review.
Sections
Additional Information
Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Alexander Kmoch conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, performed the computation work, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft, editing.
Evelyn Uuemaa analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft, editing.
Hermann Klug analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, approved the final draft, editing.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
This is a review article.
Funding
This work was supported by the six year funding (07/2011–06/2017) of the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE), New Zealand, for the SMART Aquifer Characterisation Programme (SAC) under contract number C05X1102, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions individual fellowships offered by the Horizon 2020 Programme under REA, grant agreement number 660391, and the Mobilitas Pluss Postdoctoral Researcher Grant (MOBJD) number MOBJD233 of the Estonian Research Council (ETAG). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.