Cartography and GIS: Facilitating collaboration

Maps and geographic information systems (GISystems) both encode spatial relation-ships in structured formal representations. These representations enable shared under-standing of geographic phenomena and their interdependencies. This formal encoding makes maps and GIS inherently well suited to facilitating collaboration among human participants in thinking and decision-making about the geographic-scale environment. Recent conceptual and technical developments in geographic information science (GIScience), and in information technology more generally, suggest we are on the cusp of a substantial increase in the role of maps and GISystems as mediators of collabora-tion – in a range of contexts that include urban planning, resource management, scientific inquiry and education (see, for example, the NCGIA Initiative 17 specialist report on collaborative spatial decision-making, Densham et al., 1995, and the rapidly expanding literature on Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) – e.g., Prates et al., 1997; Shum et al., 1997). Collaboration can take many forms and research focused on collaboration about geographic phenomena and problems can be approached from many perspectives