Tyler,

I don't know of any academic studies that compare benefits of static maps to
interactive maps or virtual globes.  But, there are a bunch of studies that
look at the value of geospatial information in various applications and
contexts.  You might be able to splice together some of the methods and get
a reasonable answer.

Ordnance Survey cites their 1999 OXERA report a lot.
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/aboutus/reports/oxera/index.html
OXERA's ROI methods are pretty standard.  I think that they've recently
updated that report, but I don't have a link.  

You might find useful ideas in some of the INSPIRE documentation.  The EU
published a slick YouTube video that might be a good starting point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr_sx0iHb1w  The video touches on a lot of
stock points about the value of geospatial information, interoperability and
accessibility.  The details are in the INSPIRE library.  Going through the
INSPIRE document collection is an exercise in endurance, but there is some
good stuff in there.

The UN's Economic and Social Council published a report in March that
touches on the broad value of geospatial information in the context of
economic development.
http://www.uneca.org/codist/codist1/content/E-ECA-CODIST-1-11-EN.pdf 

If you want to quantify the value of geospatial information in a set of
specific processes, take a look at my paper, "GVM: A Framework for
Estimating the Business Value of Geospatial Technology Within Information
Systems"  That paper is available in a few different places.  ESRI keeps a
copy at
http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/geoinfo04/docs/gvm-whitepaper.p
df

I've also published a few papers on the business value of various geospatial
technologies through IDC, but those tend to be written from a software
vendor's perspective. If you want to look at any of those let me know.  They
are all hanging out on various vendor sites.

You raise an interesting question about the value of interactive
maps/virtual globes for spatiotemporal analysis.  I think you're right. I
don't have any research on the value/utility of spatiotemporal analysis, but
I think you could extend standard ROI methods to get a useful answer.  If
you want to pursue that idea, let me know.  We could probably sketch out a
method pretty quickly. (Doing the research is a whole different deal....)  

Dave
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Today's Topics:

   1. studies that quantify the benefit of interactive maps and
      virtual globes? (Tyler Erickson)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:39:33 -0400
From: Tyler Erickson <[email protected]>
Subject: [Geowanking] studies that quantify the benefit of interactive
        maps and virtual globes?
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

Have there been academic studies that compare static cartographic maps to
interactive slippy maps and virtual globes, in term of the quality and
quantity of information that can be communicated?  I've been searching, but
so far the literature seems rather sparse.

It seems to me that there is great value in the interactive nature of modern
tools, particularly in the ability to quickly change perspective to see both
the 'forest', the 'trees', and how they are related.  And another area for
which the interactive maps/globes seem to shine is in presenting temporal
data.  But has there been work in recent years to quantify the benefit of
this interactivity?

I'm mostly interested in representing attributes of objects for which the
3-D location is important (i.e. objects moving in the atmosphere), but any
leads on the value of interactive maps are also appreciated.

- Tyler




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