Twenty years is 175,316 hours to everyone. However, to our international journal Geo-spatial Information Science (GSIS), 20 years means 748 papers, contributed by more than 1500 authors from at least 40 countries all over the world.
Launched by Wuhan University in 1998, GSIS was based on the outstanding research fields at the then Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping (WTUSM), and now a part of Wuhan University. The key research areas continue to be Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geographic Information Science, Geospatial Data Infrastructures, Geodesy, and GNSS. Originally, the journal was published by WTUSM from Volume 1 Issue 1 until 2007. From 2007 until 2012, the journal was jointly published with Springer-Verlag. Starting in 2012 however, the journal has been published by Taylor & Francis (T&F). Since T&F has taken over the production and marketing of the journal, it has become an OPEN ACCESS journal, with the notable and favorable characteristic that there is no article publishing charge (APC) to the authors. We believe that it should be truly helpful for more worldwide authors to publish their original research works, and also for our journal to promote the barrier-free dissemination of Geospatial Information Science. As an international journal focused on Geospatial Information Science, GSIS has provided, over the past 20 years, a forum for high-quality, original research and review articles, addressing the practical and theoretical issues influencing the development of Geomatics, especially in the fields of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geospatial Information Computation, Geodesy & GNSS.
The past 20 years have witnessed many technology advances reflected in the papers published in GSIS. While traditional error distribution, outlier detection and reliability of adjustment models were still hot topics in 1998 (Sun Citation1998; Wang et al. Citation1998), GIS for CyberCity (Li et al. Citation2000), Internet GIS (Gong Citation2001), and GIS-based applications (Braun, Rau, and Simões Citation2001) became the forefront of Geomatics. While precise point positioning (PPP) of GPS became a mature technology for wide applications (Zhang Citation2005), BeiDou was still a baby. While digital city (Shao and Li Citation2009) is the mainstream of urban information development in 2009, smart city (Li et al. Citation2013) was not far from our reach in 2013. While spatial data mining was as the first ray of the morning sun in 2003 (Wang et al. Citation2003), spatiotemporal big data is now one of the most urgent research topics in this area (Shu Citation2016). GSIS will continue to capture the hot spots in this field in the future.
As of this year, GSIS now has a completely new, truly international editorial board, with recognized experts in all the topics covered by the journal. With the strong support of T&F the journal is now much more visible internationally, and is supported by a professional team at T&F as well as in the Editorial Office of the journal at Wuhan University. The journal is published four times a year. For this twentieth Anniversary year, we have some special events to draw to your attention. Volume 20 Issue 1 is a regular issue with 5 research papers and a book review. Volume 20 Issue 2 will be a Special 20th Anniversary Issue on the topic “Perspectives on the Nature of Geospatial Information”. This will include invited review papers covering policy aspects, security perspectives as well as many other perspectives such as standards, education, technical aspects, commercial ones, applications and scientific perspectives on geospatial information. Volume 20 Issue 3 will also be a Special Issue on the topic “Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)-Analytics”. The fourth issue of this year will be a Special Issue on the topic of “Information Extraction from Remote Sensing Imagery”. Hence we are sure you will enjoy reading these papers in GSIS in 2017.
Another highlight during this 20th Anniversary year is that Wuhan University is hosting the ISPRS Geospatial Week, from 18 to 22 September, 2017 (http://gsw2017.3snews.net/). Well over one thousand scientists, students, managers etc., will be in Wuhan at that time to discuss the latest trends, directions of geospatial information. We warmly welcome many of our GSIS readers to join in this event. It will be an excellent opportunity to network with both top experts, leading young researchers and many others. GSIS will have an exhibition booth at this event, and we invite you to stop by, and discuss our journal. We are always on the look-out for innovative research papers in any and all aspects of geospatial information science.
Let me conclude this editorial welcoming you to our 20th Anniversary, by wishing you a very exciting and productive research year. We look forward to your continued support for GSIS. Have a great 2017!
Editor-in-Chief
Geo-spatial Information Science
[email protected]
References
- Braun, M., F. Rau, and J. Simões. 2001. “A GIS-based Glacier Inventory for the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands − A First Case Study on King George Island.” Geo-spatial Information Science 4 (2): 15–24.10.1007/BF02826973
- Gong, J. Y. 2001. “Design and Implementation of an Internet GIS.” Geo-spatial Information Science 4 (2): 1–7.
- Li, D. R., J. Shan, Z. F. Shao, X. R. Zhou, and Y. YAO. 2013. “Geomatics for Smart Cities – Concept, Key Techniques,and Applications.” Geo-spatial Information Science 16 (1): 13–24.10.1080/10095020.2013.772803
- Li, D. R., Q. Zhu, and X. F. Li. 2000. “Cybercity: Conception, Technical Supports and Typical Applications.” Geo-spatial Information Science 3 (4): 1–8.
- Shao, Z. F., and D. R. Li. 2009. “Design and Implementation of Service-oriented Spatial Information Sharing Framework in Digital City.” Geo-spatial Information Science 12 (2): 104–109.10.1007/s11806-009-0015-5
- Shu, H. 2016. “Big Data Analytics: Six Techniques.” Geo-spatial Information Science 19 (2): 119–128.10.1080/10095020.2016.1182307
- Sun, H. Y. 1998. “A More General Form of Error Distribution.” Geo-spatial Information Science 1 (1): 50–62.
- Wang, J. L., Y. Q. Chengi, and B. Z. Tao. 1998. “Outlier Detection and Reliability of Adjustment Models with Singular Covariance Matrices.” Geo-spatial Information Science 1 (1): 55–59.
- Wang, S. L., D. R. Li, W. Z. Shi, and X. Z. Wang. 2003. “Geo-Rough Space.” Geo-spatial Information Science 6 (1): 54–61.
- Zhang, X. H., and C. E. Dongchen. 2005. “Velocity of Surface Ice Flow on Amery Ice Shelf Determined with PPP.” Geo-spatial Information Science 8 (4): 251–256.