urrent 
Research
Priorities

Since 1996, UCGIS has promoted ten research priorities, listed here in no implied order:

•	Spatial Data Acquisition and Integration
Data acquisition continues to be a major impediment to GIS development and application. Research is needed to reduce acquisition costs, to automatically integrate new data with existing data, and to facilitate analysis of data from diverse sources.

•	Distributed Computing
Processing and storage are being shared across networks involving many computer platforms.   In the future, many GIS functions may become modules in distributed computing environments. Research is needed on the economic, institutional, and technical implications of this trend.

•	Extensions to Geographic Representation
Current commercial GIS products deal primarily with static, two-dimensional distributions.  Many GIS applications, from local to global scale, require better representation and analysis of  three-dimensional and dynamic information.

•	Cognition of Geographic Information
A better understanding of human geographic cognition will improve the utility of geographic information technologies to experienced users and will make them more accessible to inexperienced and disadvantaged users from many cultures.

•	Interoperability of Geographic Information
Interoperability refers to the integration of existing, independently developed computer applications.  Research is required to improve interoperability so that each system can recognize and employ data and commands from other systems, not originally designed to work together.

•	Scale
Scale refers to the level of detail with which information is observed, represented, analyzed, and communicated. Many physical and cultural processes do not scale in a linear or  uniform fashion. Research is needed to understand the sensitivity of geographic information to changes in scale.

•	Spatial Analysis in a GIS Environment
Spatial analysis allows us to go beyond maps as pictures to identify problem causes and solutions.  Research is needed to extend existing approaches to larger and more complex datasets and to connect analytical techniques of other fields to the GIS environment.

•	The Future of the Spatial Information Infrastructure
The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) is crucial to national needs economic vitality, institutional capacity, and an informed society.  Research is needed on information policy, access, economics of information, and integration of local data.

•	Uncertainty in Spatial Data and GIS-based Analyses
Uncertainty in Spatial Data and GIS-based Analyses: Geographic data imperfectly represent reality, and discrepancies propagate through spatial data management and analyses in a GIS environment.  Research is needed to recognize, report, reduce, and cope with uncertainty.

•	GIS and Society
Access to GIS offers great potential benefit to society.  Research is needed guide the development of GIS toward maximum equity, efficiency, and effectiveness.  We need to know more about the individual, societal, political, economic, legal, and institutional impacts of such technologies.

More complete descriptions can be found at www.ucgis.org or in the July 1996 issue of Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 23(3).

(02/98)