Ming-Hsiang Tsou | San Diego State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Ming-Hsiang Tsou

A User-Centered Design (UCD) approach can facilitate the development of effective user interfaces... more A User-Centered Design (UCD) approach can facilitate the development of effective user interfaces and generate comprehensive map contents for web mapping applications and services. To create a successful web mapping application, all major system components (GIS databases, web map servers, and web map browsers) should satisfy the needs of users and fulfill the objectives of mapping services. Different countries may have different user needs and mapping objectives. This research proposes a five-stage developmental framework (based on UCD approaches) for two major components of web mapping services: web map user interface (functions) and web map display layers (map contents). The five-stage framework (strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface) of a UCD approach can provide comprehensive guidelines and implementation procedures for GIS developers and cartographers. This chapter uses a real-world web mapping example in the United States to illustrate the five stage UCD framework. The example prototype illustrates the display needs of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) hydrologic data and the required GIS tasks for water resource managers. The web map prototype is evaluated by domain experts and users in USGS to analyze the effectiveness of a web mapping toolset and interface. This research suggests that full adoption of a UCD approach will improve the quality of web mapping and provide more useful geospatial information services for various users.

Until recently, GIS education was limited to upper division and graduate level programs at univer... more Until recently, GIS education was limited to upper division and graduate level programs at universities due to the high cost of hardware, and the complexity of system installation and maintenance. By adopting Web-based GIS (ArcIMS) and Mobile GIS (ArcPad), high school students and educators can easily learn GIS concepts and techniques. This paper introduces the NSF-funded project, "A Scalable Skills Certification Program in Geographic Information Systems" (HTTP://geoinfo.sdsu.edu/hightech/). One of the main goals of the project is to create an effective GIS career awareness program for high school students. By incorporating Web-based GIS in their curricula, high schools and educators can teach with GIS while minimizing the issues associated with a traditional GIS including training, software installation, and system maintenance. These issues can add complexity, greater time and resource requirements, and cost. Students can utilize a standard desktop computer with a Web browser and Internet connection to access GIS resources such as ecological maps; or use GIS techniques such as using GPS receivers with wireless mobile GIS (ArcPad) to monitor land cover changes in a regional park. Teachers and faculty members can utilize modularized Web-based GIS exercises developed by this program and incorporate them into their existing curricula and supplemental student activities.

Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2010

This paper examines the degree of multidisplinary cooperation for Geographic Information Science ... more This paper examines the degree of multidisplinary cooperation for Geographic Information Science (GIS) education programs that award GIS-related degrees or certificates at US colleges and universities. We classified departments and courses into ten major disciplines using Dewey Decimal Classification. In the 2007–2008 academic year, approximately 40 per cent of GIS education programs related to multiple disciplines and nearly 20 per cent were involved with more than three disciplines. Geography was the major provider of GIS education programs, but the ratio between geography-related discipline and other disciplines combined was approximately 1:3. Fostering multidisciplinary GIS education programs should strengthen geography in general as well as GIS education.

International Journal of Strategic Information Technology and Applications, 2010

Giscience & Remote Sensing, 2005

A cross-platform Web-

Establishing a geospatial cyberinfrastructure is essential for the future development of geospati... more Establishing a geospatial cyberinfrastructure is essential for the future development of geospatial information systems and services. Geospatial cyberinfrastructure will foster seamless integration of heterogeneous geospatial information, web-based mapping and geo-analytical services across the Internet. This paper will first discuss the significance of geospatial cyberinfrastructure for the GIS community and highlight several underpinning techniques of geospatial cyberinfrastructure, including Grid computing, Web Services, OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) interoperability standards and Semantic Web. Emphasis is given to the discussion of developing intelligent and analytical geospatial information services in the geospatial cyberinfrastructure. An analytical problem solving multi-tier architecture is proposed as a theoretical foundation for the geospatial cyberinfrastructure. Part of the architecture is demonstrated by a simplified prototype which is used to test the feasibility of the proposed multi-tier geospatial cyberinfrastructure.

Annals of Gis / Geographic Information Sciences, 2005

This paper presents a new framework for Grid-enabled GIService web portals to facilitate the buil... more This paper presents a new framework for Grid-enabled GIService web portals to facilitate the building of high-level intelligent Internet GIServices. The five-tier architecture suggested here can support advanced semantic search and query functions for distributed GIServices by combining Grid computing, Semantic Web, and software agent technologies. The design of the web portal user interface with software agents can help end users combine and integrate computing power with geospatial data and services. Geospatial ontologies are incorporated into the framework by using geographic web ontology language (G-OWL). Intelligent software agent (GeoAgent) techniques are used to automate the procedures for searching, retrieving and processing geospatial data. The proposed Internet GIService architecture will provide a blue print for the establishment of Grid-enabled Internet GIServices and will help the GIS community to identify potential technical challenges to implement intelligent Internet GIServices.

Geography Compass, 2007

This article explains the fundamental concepts of Internet geographic information system (GIS) te... more This article explains the fundamental concepts of Internet geographic information system (GIS) technology and illustrates its capabilities using the example of water quality monitoring in San Diego Bay Watershed, California. Internet GIS technology has democratized public access to geographic data and information services, and software applications such as Google Earth provide millions of users with instantaneous access to digital geographic data and tools that, until recently, were only available to GIS specialists. In addition to making geographic data accessible to a large number of potential users, Internet GIS is also a technological vehicle for encouraging public participation in local decision-making processes. Key developments of Internet GIS technology are highlighted. The links between Internet GIS and public participation are summarized and an application called Common Ground is described. Common Ground delivers data and information about water quality in the San Diego Bay Watershed to the public. The design, architecture, and capabilities of this Internet GIS application are discussed, and the lessons learned and the outlooks for future Internet GIS developments are evaluated.

The need for global access and decentralized management of geographic information is pushing the ... more The need for global access and decentralized management of geographic information is pushing the GIS community to establish an open GIS architecture and provide distributed geographic information services. From an operational perspective, the role of client/server components underlie specification of task-oriented programming, and the modularization of GIS software. Exchange of geographic information services cannot happen without development of metadata strategies for exchange of processing modules. This research proposes a flexible and dynamic Client/Server relationship in the context of Lego-like distributed GIS components, which can be moved, combined, and used in distributed network environments. Derived from generic GIS tasks, four representative client-side GIS components and two server-side GIS components illustrate the balance of functionality between client and server components. An object-oriented metadata scheme is proposed to formalize description of GIS operators as well as geospatial data sets. The metadata scheme introduces two new types of metadata for GIS components: system metadata and GIS operator metadata, which describe GIS component behaviors and specify data requirements of specified GIS operators. Distributed GIS components become reusable, modularized, self-described, and self-managing with the collaboration of system metadata and GIS operator metadata. The use of operational metadata objects is the key to interoperability and plug-and-play functions for open and distributed GIS components.

The Internet can provide interactive display and multimedia functions for digital maps and remote... more The Internet can provide interactive display and multimedia functions for digital maps and remotely sensed imagery. One major problem for the development of Internet mapping facilities is information overload. It is a challenge for the cartographic community to make the power of Internet mapping accessible to users, but at the same time to help users adapt cartographic concepts and rules to their web mapping applications. This chapter will introduce a possible solution by adopting software agents in the architecture of Internet mapping facilities. In contrast to a traditional expert systems approach, the use of software agents emphasizes that their knowledge bases are located in hundreds of distributed small agent programs instead of a single huge omnipotent computer machine. The design of an intelligent software agent could facilitate the establishment of distributed cartography knowledge bases (CKB), which could help map users to access/distribute/exchange different cartographic rules, map symbols, color schemes, design layouts, via the Internet.

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 2009

Geospatial cyberinfrastructure integrates distributed geographic information processing (DGIP) te... more Geospatial cyberinfrastructure integrates distributed geographic information processing (DGIP) technology, high-performance computing resources, interoperable Web services, and sharable geographic knowledge to facilitate the advancement of geographic information science (GIScience) research, geospatial technology, and geographic education. This article addresses three major development issues of geospatial cyberinfrastructure: the performance of grid-enabled DGIP services, the integration of Internet GIService resources, and the technical challenges of spatial Web portal implementation. A four-tier grid-enabled Internet GIService framework was designed for geospatial cyberinfrastructure. The advantages of the grid-enabled framework were demonstrated by a spatial Web portal. The spatial Web portal was implemented based on current available Internet technologies and utilizes multiple computing resources and high-performance systems, including local PC clusters and the TeraGrid. By comparing their performance testing results, we found that grid computing (TeraGrid) is more powerful and flexible than local PC clusters. However, job queuing time and relatively poor performance of cross-site computation are the major obstacles of grid computing for geospatial cyberinfrastructure. Detailed analysis of different computational settings and performance testing contributes to a deeper understanding of the improvements of DGIP services and geospatial cyberinfrastructure. This research demonstrates that resource/service integration and performance improvement can be accomplished by deploying the new four-tier grid-enabled Internet GIService framework. This article also identifies four research priorities for developing geospatial cyberinfrastructure: the design of GIS middleware, high-performance geovisualization methods, semantic GIService, and the integration of multiple GIS grid applications.

Today the processing and analysis of geographical information is complicated by an increasing vol... more Today the processing and analysis of geographical information is complicated by an increasing volume of information. We present a system to directly manipulate geographical data by using object-oriented approaches and graphic user interface (GUI) design. The study concentrates on vector data and overlay operations. A case study has been conducted by using this system for potential site selection in the Ellington, Connecticut area. The GUI design of the system uses icons to represent the geographical data and their operations. Object-oriented approaches are adopted in establishing a knowledge-based GIS system. This study suggests that the next generation of GIS user interfaces should provide an intelligent agent to assist users to search, query and operate on data.

This paper establishes an architecture for global user interfaces by defining appropriate user ta... more This paper establishes an architecture for global user interfaces by defining appropriate user tasks and designing an agent-based interface mechanism for distributed geographic information services. User tasks include query, display, data integration, and GIS processing functions. The use of intelligent agents is justified in the context of increasing geospatial data volume, increasing complexity of GIS modeling, and the diversity of GIS software resources available on local and distributed networks. The architecture is defined within a context of distributed component technology. Internet-based GIS use can be facilitated by a global user interface, which is platform-independent, modularized, self-describing, and able to access multiple, heterogeneous, geographic information services distributed on the Internet.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2004

With the progress of mobile GIS technology there is a great potential for adopting wireless commu... more With the progress of mobile GIS technology there is a great potential for adopting wireless communications and Internet mapping services for regional environmental management programs and natural habitat conservation. This paper provides an overview of a NASA-funded research project that focuses on the development of mobile GIS tools and wireless Internet Map Server (IMS) services to facilitate environmental monitoring and management tasks. By developing and testing wireless web-based map/image servers, mobile GIS applications, and global positional systems (GPS), this research created an integrated software/hardware infrastructure for a prototype mobile GIS application. The mobile GIS prototype allows multiple resource managers and park rangers to access large-size, remotely sensed images and GIS layers from a portable web server mounted in a vehicle. Users can conduct real-time spatial data updates and/or submit changes back to the web server over the wireless local area network (WLAN). This paper discusses in general the major components of mobile GIS, their current technological limitations, and potential problems during implementation. Key research agenda for mobile GIS are identified with suggestions for future research and development.

A comprehensive metadata scheme for distributed geographic information services should include mu... more A comprehensive metadata scheme for distributed geographic information services should include multiple types of information services, including geodata objects, software components, and web map services. This paper examines the existing metadata standards and their implementation frameworks and presents an operational, object-oriented, hierarchical metadata architecture as an alternative solution for searching, indexing, and retrieving distributed GIServices on the Internet. An operational metadata framework can facilitate the establishment of self-manageable, self-describable GIS web services, which can be freely combined and used on the Internet. Hierarchical metadata repositories can provide a meaningful metadata archive structure and can improve metadata search mechanisms, where geospatial datasets and services are grouped and organized by their unique features or functions. By collaborating with operational metadata contents and hierarchical metadata repositories, the new metadata framework will help users and systems to access on-line geodata objects, software components, and web map services efficiently and effectively.

Journal of Geographical Systems, 2004

The combined powers of Web-based geographic information systems (GIS) and on-line remote sensing ... more The combined powers of Web-based geographic information systems (GIS) and on-line remote sensing tools can significantly reduce the high cost and labor associated with environmental monitoring and natural resource management. This paper introduces an integrated Web-based GIS architecture by combining three levels of geographic information services (GIServices): data archive, information display, and spatial analysis. A prototype Web site, WGAT (Web-based GIS and Analytic Tools), has been developed to provide easy access of geospatial information and to facilitate Web-based image analysis and change detection capabilities for natural resource managers and regional park rangers. The Web-based integration framework emphasizes user-oriented services, distributed network environments, metadata standards, communication protocols, client/server computation, and ubiquitous access.

Transactions in Gis, 2002

Traditional GISystems are no longer appropriate for modern distributed, heterogeneous network env... more Traditional GISystems are no longer appropriate for modern distributed, heterogeneous network environments due to their closed architecture, and their lack of interoperability, reusability, and flexibility. Distributed GIServices can provide broader capabilities and functions for data management, browsing, and exchange. This paper introduces a dynamic architecture for distributing GIServices. The term dynamic indicates that the architecture is constructed temporarily by connecting or migrating geodata objects and GIS components across a network. The intention of the paper is to overview components and protocols necessary for a workable implementation of dynamically linked GIServices. The paper introduces a metadata scheme for both geodata objects and software components, and proposes an implementation framework based on existing languages, computing architectures and web services. In the framework, GIS nodes form the basic processing unit. All GIServices can be accomplished through collaboration between GIS nodes. The design of the presented framework emphasizes scalability, reusability, and dynamic integration. Current distributed computing environments cannot fully support dynamic architectures for technical and other reasons. Throughout the discussion, we distinguish what currently can be implemented from what cannot. We summarize costs and benefits of adopting a dynamic GIServices paradigm in a final section.