Thank you for bringing in the production side of things, especially web-based. I do agree with you (and Goodchild) that the production of geographic information is shifting to include a wider spectrum of “public”. And indeed, the production of geographic information would fall within the realm of GIS, or GIS* (Science, System, substitute any S you like here). As I defined geoweb to be spatially enabled web-based solutions (be it cache servers distributed in space, or someone tagging a picture of trash on their street), then the production of Geographic Information is part of the realm of GIS*.

The production of knowledge though does not necessarily stem from the production of Geographic Information. I am referring to Ackoff (1989) that offers as a distinction between data, information, knowledge and wisdom. According to Ackoff, information is data that has received some processing to provide answers to “who”, “what”, “where” and “when” type of questions. Indeed, Geographic Information (as in the geo-tagged Flickr image) provide answers to these questions (even in a loose sense), but fail to answer the critical question of “how”, the element required by knowledge. Knowledge is the application of data and information to reach an answer to a “how” question. Now, there is no doubt one can infer from information some knowledge, but that process happens outside the information itself. This is another way to define GIS by itself, a usage of information that allows manipulation to reach an answer to a “how” question. Therefore, I would recast the “public” as the producer of knowledge as the producer of data and information. The knowledge production aspect, while certainly something the “public” is doing, lays outside the realm of generating information (as in a VGI).

So to recast your second to last sentence. Knowledge production requires the use of information to retrieve an answer, yet the production of information is independent of the production of a specific knowledge. Nothing precludes the information producer from deriving knowledge, but at the same time, there is no requirement for that information producer to derive any knowledge.

What do you think of the above distinction then? I feel like there is still a lot of work to define and redefine these issues. Please let me know your thoughts on this as well.

One reason I have for arguing this is because it’s tempting to think of ourselves as the producers of knowledge, when really the *source* of knowledge is actually the people uploading the pics, videos, etc….. (ryan’s one of those scary liberal/egalitarian academics)

Just curious about your thoughts on this.