https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6890-7811
![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Understanding the characteristics of the rapidly evolving geospatial software ecosystem in the United States is critical to enable convergence research and education that are dependent on geospatial data and software. This paper describes a survey approach to better understand geospatial use cases, software and tools, and limitations encountered while using and developing geospatial software. The survey was broadcast through a variety of geospatial-related academic mailing lists and listservs. We report both quantitative responses and qualitative insights. As 42% of respondents indicated that they viewed their work as limited by inadequacies in geospatial software, ample room for improvement exists. In general, respondents expressed concerns about steep learning curves and insufficient time for mastering geospatial software, and often limited access to high-performance computing resources. If adequate efforts were taken to resolve software limitations, respondents believed they would be able to better handle big data, cover broader study areas, integrate more types of data, and pursue new research. Insights gained from this survey play an important role in supporting the conceptualization of a national geospatial software institute in the United States with the aim to drastically advance the geospatial software ecosystem to enable broad and significant research and education advances.
Acknowledgments
This material is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under the grant number: 1743184. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in the material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors are grateful for insightful comments on the earlier versions of the manuscript received from Editor Stephen Hirtle and multiple anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
Data and codes availability statement
The research uses summary statistics and response counts generated from the Qualtrics survey platform. R scripts developed to create graphs are available via the following link [https://doi.org/10.13012/B2IDB-6834324_V1]. The raw survey data cannot be shared due to the survey consent agreement. The survey protocol is available as a supplementary file.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Rebecca C. Vandewalle
Rebecca Vandewalle is a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include spatially-explicit agent-based modeling, spatial network analysis, coupled human and natural systems in emergency contexts, and cyberGIS.
William C. Barley
William C. Barley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include organizational communication, collaboration and coordination, data representation, and field studies of technology design, adoption, and use.
Anand Padmanabhan
Anand Padmanabhan is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include distributed systems, cyberinfrastructure, and cyberGIS.
Daniel S. Katz
Daniel S. Katz is Assistant Director for Scientific Software and Applications at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Research Associate Professor in Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include the interaction of people and software.
Shaowen Wang
Shaowen Wang is a Professor and Head of the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science; and an Affiliate Professor of the Department of Computer Science, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include geographic information science and systems (GIS), advanced cyberinfrastructure and cyberGIS, complex environmental and geospatial problems, computational and data sciences, high-performance and distributed computing, and spatial analysis and modeling.