Geospatial Metadata 2.0 – An approach for Volunteered Geographic Information

Abstract

There has been greater tendency towards embracing the potential of the Web 2.0 in knowledge creation with user contributions becoming significantly important in the development of open data such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). An increasing number of volunteers which add value to geospatial data require effective ways of organising and providing access to value-added or newly created data. Metadata records are often unavailable for VGI, making it problematic for users to discover data in the VGI system. This paper discusses potential approaches that can be used to create metadata for VGI. This includes Linked Data, professionally created metadata and metadata created by volunteers. The paper then discusses the shortcomings of these approaches and proposes an unconventional alternative, Geospatial Metadata 2.0. This approach involves VGI users in the creation of metadata, and builds on folksonomies created by them. The paper presents the design and implementation of this idea in a prototype system along with an assessment result. The implementation includes Geospatial Metadata 2.0 add-ons in Geonetwork, and the assessment benefits from the input of metadata experts worldwide. The assessment of the benefits results indicate such an approach of metadata creation is promising and has the potential to be employed in VGI systems.