GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
DOI 10.1007/s10708-008-9182-4
A trust and reputation model for filtering and classifying
knowledge about urban growth
Mohamed Bishr Æ Lefteris Mantelas
Published online: 29 July 2008

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract In this paper we present a trust and
reputation model to classify and filter collaboratively
contributed geographic information. We hypothesize
that users contribute information in a collaborative
system akin to Web 2.0 collaborative applications.
We build on previous work where trust is proposed as
a proxy for information quality and propose a spatial
trust model to filter and extract high quality infor-
mation about urban growth behaviors contributed by
users. The motivating scenario involves residents of
recently urbanized areas taking into account their
interactions with their surroundings. The main con-
tribution of this paper is a formal trust and reputation
model that takes into account the spatial context of
users and their contributions.
Keywords Social networks
Trust

Reputation
Urban growth
Residential choice
M. Bishr (&)
Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster,
48151 Muenster, Germany
e-mail: m.bishr@uni-muenster.de
L. Mantelas
Regional Analysis Division, Institute of Applied and
Computational Mathematics, Foundation for Research and
Technology-Hellas, 71110 Heraclion Crete, Greece
e-mail: mantelas@iacm.forth.gr
Introduction
This paper proposes a trust and reputation model for
Collaboratively Contributed Geographic Information
(CCGI). The term CCGI is closely related to Volun-
teered Geographic Information (VGI), and it refers to
individual observations by the users in the model
presented in this paper.
The central problem tackled in this paper is the
collection, filtering and classification of CCGI, using
contributed information about urban growth as a
potential scenario. The term modeling refers to
projecting a phenomenon or a process to a simplified
sub-space of the real world, thus resulting in a rigid,
less dimensional analog of the phenomenon or the
process. Models are simplified versions of objects,
conditions or processes (Ness and Low 2000). In
terms of efficiency and comprehensibility, modeling
involves choosing the smallest set of objects and the
smallest set of the simplest relations that reproduce
the patterns of change in a way that is accurate and
consistent with the evolution of the real phenomenon.
When presenting our trust and reputation model, it is
tempting to try to capture all aspects of the problem
of determining CCGI quality in one model. Such a
comprehensive model is unattainable at the outset, so
we adopt a layered approach and present the first
layer in this paper. Our layered approach offers an
initial model that can be expanded by inclusion of
additional user behaviors, to incrementally increase
the complexity of the model. For example, we
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exclude a temporal dimension from our current
model, while acknowledging its importance in a
more comprehensive model.
In Bishr and Kuhn (2007) we presented a vision of
CCGI, termed ‘geospatial information bottom-up’,
that builds on the lessons learned from Web 2.0 (also
sometimes called the Social web). Web 2.0 (Oreilly
2005) is centered on the idea of harnessing the
collective intelligence of information communities.
Web users are organized in virtual communities
centered on commonalities of interest. These infor-
mation communities collaborate and produce large
amounts of information, including Geospatial Infor-
mation (GI). Bishr and Kuhn (2007) also identified
many of challenges posed by collaborative
approaches to GI collection. Among those challenges
is information quality. In large collaborative envi-
ronments, there are not yet quality measures to filter
and classify the information contributed by individ-
uals, many of whom are not GI experts. The model
we develop here rests upon a certain understanding of
expertise. We assume that the contributors of CCGI
are ordinary users with no specific training on GI.
Our approach to developing ways of evaluating the
quality of the GI they contribute borrows methods
that have proven effective on the web. Specifically,
we propose using trust and reputation as a proxy for
GI quality, while extending the concept with the idea
of spatio-temporal trust and reputation.
Information communities and trust
Using trust and reputation to evaluate information
quality implies the existence of a community within
which trust and reputation are established. In our
model, we subscribe to a certain notion of commu-
nity, that of an information community. Modeling is
an inherent procedure in our lives since people use
their own personalized empirical model of the world
in order to make decisions. These models are built on
people’s experiences and each single experience they
have tests the adequacy and consistency of their
models of the real world, expanding or altering their
knowledge base. In that sense the collective of these
personalized views represents a very good picture of
reality, where each person’s view constitutes a small
piece of a bigger picture that we term here the
‘‘collective empirical model’’ of the world in which a
certain group of people lives. This group of people
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GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
can be referred to as an information community. This
information community possesses information that is
geospatial and temporal in nature. We are motivated
here by the notion of geospatial information commu-
nities, originally proposed by the Open Geospatial
Consortium (OGC) a decade ago. Information com-
munities are defined here as ‘‘a community of
geodata producers and users who share a common
set of feature definitions and ontology of real world
phenomena’’ (Bishr et al. 1999, p. 58).
Having asserted that harnessing information com-
munities is the basis of our trust and reputation
model, we must point out that trust from a sociolog-
ical point of view is a prerequisite for the existence of
community. Functioning societies rely strongly on
trust between the individuals (Sztompka 1999; Usla-
ner 2002; Seligman 1997). On the one hand, in real
world communities citizens rely on subjective mea-
sures of trust. On the other hand, in online
communities objective measures of trust have been
used as users rate each other with trust values
pertaining to how much one user trusts another in a
certain context since trust is a highly contextualized
phenomenon (Zaihrayeu et al. 2005a, b; Golbeck
2005). Many definitions of trust exist, and we adopt a
simple definition, viewing trust as a bet that an
individual makes about the future contingent actions
of others (Sztompka 1999). Since our model depends
on some form of social networks, four properties of
trust can be identified, namely, transitivity, compos-
ability, personalization and asymmetry (Golbeck
2005).
Transitivity is about the propagation of trust
through chains of people from one person to the
other, although trust is not mathematically perfectly
transitive (Golbeck 2005). Composability is about
situations where different actors rate the same person
or item. From these ratings, we can then compose the
value and establish an absolute rating of that person
or item. Personalization asserts that trust is relative,
and dependant on personal perspective. Given our
adopted definition of trust, a good outcome for one
person could be a bad outcome for another. Asym-
metry pertains to the fact that trust might not be equal
in both directions. That is, Person A might trust
Person B independently of how Person B trusts
Person A. Our computational model exhibits all of
these properties of trust through the formalism
presented.
GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
One important point to address is our use of the
term ‘‘spatial’’ trust model. The question this raises is
why do we assert a relationship between the spatial
location of an information contributor and trust?
Trust and reputation in our model occur over social
networks. Studies have shown a direct relation
between the evolution of social networks and geo-
graphic space (Metcalf and Paich 2005). Studies of
how similarity between people breeds connection,
also known as homophily (McPherson et al. 2001),
showed that geographical proximity is a basic source
of homophily. Zipf (1949) justifies this relationship
as a matter of effort, noting that it takes less effort to
build and maintain relations when the subjects are in
a close geographical proximity. Also some research
has used geographic distance as an indicator of
network density (Buskens 2002). Although technol-
ogies have apparently loosened the effect of
geography by lowering the effort involved (Kaufer
and Carley 1993), communities still show strong
geographic patterns (Verbrugge 1983). Also, tech-
nologies have allowed people to make homophilic
relations through other dimensions (Wellman et al.
1996).
Our spatial trust and reputation model combines
trust and the spatial dimension to filter CCGI, to
select the best candidate information to form a
‘‘collective empirical model’’ of the universe of
discourse for a certain information community. In
this paper we view the residents of urban areas as one
such information community.
Problem description
Understanding urban growth in terms of actors’
behavior requires a collection of certain types of
data from residents living in areas of study. This
collected information reflects the residents’ view of
the area and the forces that are shaping urban growth
through their residential choice. These information
entities constitute the CCGI in question for this paper.
As Agarwal et al. (2000) points out, models
incorporating higher levels of human-decision-mak-
ing are more centrally located with respect to spatial
and temporal scales. That is, they fall within the
middle ground of those scales, probably due to the
lack of data availability at more extreme scales.
Extracting information that captures micro-level
231
patterns of human behavior is a major challenge in
building efficient, more realistic urban growth models
(Cheng and Masser 2003). Existing Knowledge Base
Extraction (KBE) methods that are based on the
analysis of aggregate data also fail to do so. They
cannot express the overall dynamic of a social system
by mapping its partial dynamics. They lose the social,
temporal and decision-making heterogeneity that
exists in people’s behavior patterns. Furthermore,
even if we could reproduce the exact patterns that
occurred during the past, we can only apply them in a
model under the assumption that these patterns will
not change. We may capture the tendencies, but not
necessarily the potentials. While Berry (2004)
focuses on the way households make decisions on
an aggregate level, we need to investigate the internal
decision making process of individual households.
The problem then is to build a collaborative KBE
system, which leverages the collective intelligence of
the information community to collect up-to-date
dynamic information about urban growth in a contin-
uous, evolving manner. In such a system, the question
we need to answer is ‘‘How and why should we trust a
certain individual piece of CCGI provided by a certain
user?’’ The provided information in our case is local
knowledge from residents about recently urbanized
areas. This information can assist modelers in under-
standing the micro-level dynamics of urban growth. Our
approach builds on a spatio-temporal trust model to filter
through the potentially large flow of CCGI provided by
the users, to extract the highest quality information.
Problem approach
Cecchini and Rizzi (2001) suggest an urban analysis
perspective to understand urban growth: ‘‘walk in the
streets and interact with the inhabitants, and discover
that those who move across the city do so for
different reasons, each person for more than one
reason’’. We suggest the utility of walking directly to
the source of the urban growth phenomenon: urban
residents themselves. Let the decision-makers (resi-
dents) model their own behavior and point out the
important parameters and the way these parameters
affect them, as well as explain the ‘‘reasons for’’ and
‘‘the reasons not to’’ take particular actions. If we
extract this kind of knowledge from people, then we
can map the very specific reasons that lead them to
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particular behaviors that affect urban growth pro-
cesses. There is an implicit assumption here that the
residents have a collective sense of the urban growth
phenomenon, an assumption that is supported by the
notion of information communities (Bishr et al.
1999) as discussed earlier. The methodologies of
earlier approaches failed to capture micro-level
details about people’s behaviors. A number of the
previously presented approaches incorporate inter-
view and questionnaire features. Luo and Sen (2004)
and Otoo et al. (2006) made field surveys using
questionnaires, formal and informal interviews, and
focus group discussions to explore and understand the
nature of the spatial growth processes. These
approaches though, took into account certain groups
of businessmen, peasants and local officials, and
included a limited number of interviews and discus-
sions processes while aiming more at the economic
level of analysis.
We propose a wider scale of application that relies
on the foundations of Web 2.0 and overcomes the
limitation of the Otto’s and Luo’s approaches. By
building web applications utilizing CCGI gathered
from the residents of growing urban areas, we can gain
insights about the micro-level patterns of human
behaviors and use this information to deliver better
services. Initially, we need to focus on the institutional
framework for the information required and define a set
of specifications concerning the type and form of the
CCGI we collect. Barredo et al. (2003) identifies five
fundamental aspects of urban growth that should be
included in the institutional framework:
• environmental characteristics,
• local-scale neighborhood characteristics,
• spatial characteristics,
• urban and regional planning policies and
• factors related to individual preferences, level of
economic development, socio-economic and
political systems.
CCGI about urban growth should touch on these
elements to ensure coverage of the phenomenon
within the reported information by the observers.
Motivating scenario
In this section we present a scenario that demon-
strates the model presented in this paper. The
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GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
example is based on an urbanization scenario of
areas that are showing rapid urban growth over
relatively short periods of time.
Urban modelers study an area that has been rapidly
urbanized within the last decade in order to under-
stand the micro-level dynamics behind urban growth.
The modelers need to find a theoretical framework
that fits the actual facts and sufficient data to
implement and calibrate it. Instead, they may view
the community of residents within this urban growth
area as an information community in which each
individual has their own model of the world and their
experience with urban growth. The collective view of
this community forms a collective empirical model of
their world.
Our scenario would include a system for collecting
several elements of users’ experiences of urban
growth as CCGI. Users would be provided with
web interfaces and handheld devices with which they
could log information pertaining to the criteria
mentioned earlier, such as:
• marks for locations of urban sprawl around urban
boundaries
• buildings that have recently been built
• parameters of recently built buildings (floors,
heights, etc.)
• estimated income averaging for certain locations
in the urban areas
• a variety of neighborhood characteristics (traffic
jams, public transport hubs, etc.)
Residents could collect and mark this information
and possibly any other parameters deemed necessary
by the urban growth modelers using the map-assisted
web forms or handheld devices. The forms and
devices would require the residents to provide other
specific information to help the system calculate trust
ratings for filtering later. This information would
include the following elements:
• the location of the residents at the time where they
noticed the information they contributed as CCGI
• if a particular CCGI was previously reported by
some other resident, then the resident attempting
to report it again would have to give the previous
reporting a rating. The rating pertains to the
quality of the previous reporting as an accurate
representation of reality. Giving a rating would
not preclude the user from re-reporting the
GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
information again on their own if the user has
better information
• the system could count how many times the same
CCGI entity was reported by different users.
With the information provided to this system, our
trust and reputation model could be applied to
compute trust ratings for the contributed CCGI from
all the users of the system. The urban growth
modelers could then study the micro-level factors
behind the urban growth process using the extracted
information. In the following section we illustrate
how our trust and reputation model functions to
achieve this required rating and filtration of CCGI.
Spatio-temporal trust and reputation model
Extensive research has been done on trust in web based
social networks (WBSN) for a variety of applications,
including email filtering and web based recommender
systems (Golbeck 2005). In this research, trust calcula-
tions have proved superior in providing a measure of the
quality of movie reviews and emails, when compared to
both the average rating and ratings generated by
traditional collaborative filtering algorithms. Some
web researchers are also interested in using social
notions of trust to identify how answers provided on the
web can be trusted. The Inference Web (McGuinness
et al. 2004) aims to take vague query answers and make
them more transparent by providing explanations.
Zaihrayeu et al. (2005a, b) provide an extension of the
inference web that is termed IWTrust. IWTrust uses
quantified measures of trust in answers returned by
search queries on the web. It utilizes trust values in
social networks among users, and trust values between
the users and the information to compute these trust
ratings.
Trust in WBSNs measures the value of informa-
tion produced by a group of users to others users who
consume this information (Ziegler and Lausen 2004;
Golbeck 2005; Zaihrayeu et al. 2005a, b). Users who
are trusted by others (aka. trustees) are the ones who,
from the perspective of the trustors, provide more
useful information. Generally in CCGI environments
there is a lack of traditional quality criteria such as
lineage, accuracy, consistency and completeness. We
propose using trust as a proxy for GI quality. We
view quality as a subjective measure to some extent,
233
but argue that if some trust rated geospatial informa-
tion is useful and relevant to larger group of users it
can be assumed to have satisfactory quality in a more
objective sense (Bishr and Kuhn 2007).
In Bishr (2007) we introduced a spatio-temporal
trust model for social networks. The model presented
here is different from its predecessor in that it takes into
account ratings of information contributions and not
just the number of times an information entity is
reported. It also uses a log function for distance rather
than raw distance. These two modifications improve
the ratings of the model. First, by incorporating ratings
of the information entities made by its consumers, the
model has an explicit account of trust ratings that was
not available in the earlier approach. This explicit
account is important since we assume that the objective
quality of an information entity is directly proportional
to the trustworthiness of the information entity, as
judged by information consumers. In the earlier model
trust was not explicit. Second, the use of raw distance in
the earlier model was problematic because large
distances (e.g. a contributor living in a suburb at the
outskirts of a city) resulted in trust values that were
disproportionally small compared to people living
shorter distances from the center. To smooth the trust
function we resorted to a simple log function that
yielded more uniform results across sufficiently large
distance variations.
It should be noted that our model in this stage does
not account for the temporal dimension of some
phenomena. Some features change continuously,
such as traffic information or pollution, and so some
locations would be associated with temporal variables
in the model. As noted earlier, we adopt a layered
approach to expanding model complexity and do not
include temporal variables at this stage. We acknowl-
edge the importance of integrating such variables and
leave that for future work.
When a resident marks a certain piece of CCGI the
process result can be viewed as a bipartite graph
(Fig. 1). The resulting bipartite graph of people
(actors) and contributions is a two mood non-dyadic
affiliation network (Fig. 1). Actors are possibly
affiliated to many contributions and contributions
are possibly contributed by many actors. Hence, our
affiliation network consists of a set of actors and a set
of contributed information entities. We observe two
sets of nodes representing the two moods of the
network shown below.
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N: is the set of all actors (people) who are
contributing information

to the network.
 Those actors
can be viewed N ¼ n1 ; n2 ; . . .; ng in terms of the
subset of CCGI to which they contributed. M: Is the
set of all CCGI that are contributed by actors n,
similar to the members of the set N, CCGI can also be
viewed in terms of the subset of M ¼ fm1 ; m2 ; . . .;
mh g actors who contributed these CCGI. In Fig. 1 a
link exists between actors/person n2 for example and
CCGIm3 when the person has marked, rated, and/or
reported the information entity.
Also between actors N we take into account a
social network representing the relationships between
people in a study area. Such relations include but not
limited to, kinship, neighborhood and friendship. Our
model has a hybrid network structure that represents
an affiliation network between people and CCGI
entities, as well as a social network between people
involved in the system. The problem is now to
calculate the trustworthiness of a given information
entity such as m3 based on the reputation of the users
who contributed this entity.
Fig. 1 An affiliation network of agents/users (white nodes)
and the CCGI they contribute (black nodes) with social
network links weighted by distance and user ratings. Lines
connecting N nodes are a separate agent-agent social network,
making this model a hybrid affiliation-one mode social
network
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GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
The first step is to calculate a trust rating based on
the number of people contributing CCGI and
weighted by two factors:
• a rating given by actors N to CCGI entities M, this
rating is denoted rn,m and is on a scale of 1–10.
• the distance between an actor and the CCGI they
contributed, such a distance measure is an indi-
cation of the network density (as defined in
Wasserman and Faust 1994). Network density has
an inverse relation with distance, while (Nohria
and Eccles 1992; Buskens 2002) suggested a
positive relation between network density and
trust. This positive relation is an artifact of the
speed of transmission of information in networks
and strength of relations between actors, which in
turn fosters trust.
The proposed first component of the trust rating is
based on the nodal degree d(mh) (Wasserman and
Faust 1994). The first component of the model is then
denoted 0 d(mh) such that:
Xk rðn;mÞi
0
dðmh Þ ¼ where ci [ 1 ð1Þ
i¼1 logðci Þ
where 0 d(mh) is an adjusted nodal degree for a certain
CCGI such as m3 taking into account the two factors
mentioned above and r(n,m)i is the ith rating from n to
m and Ci is the distance between n and m at the time
that n reports the CCGI entity m. we opted for a log10
function to smoothen the sharp variations in the
equation implied by using raw distance.
The second two equations are straightforward.
Equation 2 represents a trust calculation at the social
network level between the actors.
P
N
ðtni ng Þðkni ng Þ
ni 2adjðng Þ;i¼1
tng ¼ ð2Þ
N
where tng is the trust rating of an actor n based on the
trust ratings given to him/her by the actors with
whom he/she is connected in the network, tni ;ng is the
rating from actor i to actor g and kni ;ng is a rating that
represents the strength of social ties between the
actors. This rating is personal and should be deter-
mined based on user opinions and analysis of the
nature of relations such as kinship or friendship for
example. Based on Eq.2 the final trust rating of the
information entity m is given by Eq. 3
GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
Xk
tng rðn;mÞi
tmh ¼ where ci [ 1 ð3Þ
i¼1;g¼1
logðci Þ
Equation 3 introduces the final trust rating of a
certain CCGI contributed by a resident of an urban
growth area. The metric presented is sensitive to
geographic distance, and the nature of social
relations, trust ratings and distance. By filtering
information using this metric we can extract
relevant CCGI related to the area of study and
that are of adequate quality, since the model is
premised upon the notion that the quality of the
information is strongly determined by its spatial/
social context.
One question that remains unanswered is how the
model will behave in instances where users submit
CCGI about a location where they made a direct
observation, but they are not presently located. For
example, a user might report information about the
street where s/he lives while s/he is on a vacation
elsewhere. Our model assumes the location of the
observer at the moment he is making the observation
and does not deal with such exceptional situations.
However, our model could be easily adjusted by
changing the definition of location, without altering
the formal model itself. This can be done by
assuming the location used in the model to be the
observer’s usual location, where s/he generally has
knowledge, instead of the location while actually
making the observation.
The Eqs. 1–3 represent the core of our formal
model. They depend on the existence of a network
model as in Fig. 1 to give trust ratings for CCGI
tokens. By taking into account the location of
observers when they make observations, ratings by
the system users, and bi-partite graph properties
(count of contributions) we can compute trust ratings
for the CCGI observations. In a system where such a
model is implemented, the trust-rated tokens can be
filtered out and served to information consumers as
reliable information.
Traditional models of information authority are
generally lacking in VGI environments and thus,
alternative models are required. Our model builds a
collaborative authority system that corresponds with
the collaborative nature of VGI. Further research on
other areas of VGI where this model could be of
benefit is an ongoing effort.
235
Conclusions
Web 2.0 encompasses the key ideas of harnessing the
collective intelligence of web communities, enabling
interaction and collaboration between web users
organized in communities centered on common goals
and objectives. Users are no longer only content
consumers, but are also content producers. As early in
the web’s history as 1996 studies of the quality of
user-provided information proved that large amounts
of information were simply unreliable, outdated or
plainly wrong (Janes and Rosenfeld 1996). The case
becomes more evident in Web 2.0 applications, since
contributors are a heterogeneous group of people with
varying experiences and backgrounds, resulting in
large amounts of information that is lacking tradi-
tional quality criteria. Traditional models of authority
(libraries, publishers, editors, media outlets) that
controlled the flow of information are being chal-
lenged. New models of authority need to emerge to
control the flow of information in Web 2.0.
Into this context, our paper contributes a commu-
nity-based collaborative model of authority, one
where the producers make information, and their
peers and other information consumers judge the
information quality. A valid metaphor here is the
scientific peer review process, albeit on a much larger
community scale and in a Web 2.0 collaborative
manner. We propose using community based infor-
mation authority to assure quality of information,
mainly based on trust and reputation. Using trust and
reputation as a measure of information relevance and
quality is well-documented in web research, and our
approach proposes a novel method to include spatial
and temporal parameters in making trust judgments
about geoinformation. Our trust and reputation model
can be applied to filter and extract information about
the residential choice process, to better understanding
its effect on urban growth.
One important element of our model must be
assessed is its resilience to improper tampering or
fraud. Some users might abuse the system and
provide false or irrelevant ratings either on purpose
or inadvertently. Such a problem is inherent in all
trust and reputation systems. One answer is that the
average of the volume of contributions will adjust
itself to proper values overcoming improper usage of
the system, and this view is supported by existing
research (Surowiecki 2004). However, further
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research into this issue is essential to ensure model
resilience to potential abuse by some users.
Goodchild (2007) proposes the term VGI to
describe a collection of applications and web phe-
nomena that involves large-scale collaboration of
heterogeneous users. Compared to geogspatial data
developed and managed in more conventional ways,
such as through spatial data infrastructures (SDIs),
the phenomenon of VGI is unique in several ways. It
has emerged from the bottom up and does not tend to
rely upon top-down approaches to ensuring informa-
tion quality or data sharing. Many traditional models
of information authority that have been used with
more conventional forms of spatial information are
not present or useful with VGI. Identifying these and
other gaps between VGI and traditional GIS is an
important step in the emerging VGI research agenda.
Identifying these gaps begins to highlight key
research needs and directions, particularly with
respect to the hardware, software, methodological,
institutional framework, and data handling issues that
will need to be addressed if we are to make use of
volunteered information.
The scenarios we have developed in this paper
contribute to these efforts to identify key research
directions in VGI, and respond specifically to the
need for techniques that are suitable for working with
these data, in light of their unique properties
compared to other forms of spatial information.
Based on the expectation that VGI will be tremen-
dously diverse (because of the diverse nature of its
contributors) and that the quality of contributed
information will vary widely (because of the range
of skills and experience of the contributors), we offer
a model for information filtering and classification.
Our model might be applied to extract the contributed
information expected to be most reliable, from a more
varied collection of information. Thinking beyond
our specific technique described here, we would
argue that the emerging research agenda must
develop many such techniques for working with
VGI. Specifically, the phenomenon of VGI centers
upon generating and organizing information based
upon its geographical properties, and further research
must consider the implications of this for information
archival and retrieval systems, information discovery,
location-based services, and existing techniques for
assessing information quality. Finally, in a broader
societal sense, VGI research much also examine
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GeoJournal (2008) 72:229–237
questions of privacy, especially how these are to be
handled technically, not just legally or institutionally.
Our model brings up at least one issue with respect to
privacy in the context of VGI. Our approach for
assessing the quality and integrity of contributed
information rest upon having some information about
the contributors, in this case their residential location.
This example illustrates that issues of privacy asso-
ciated with VGI might emerge not only from the
contributed information itself, but also from the
models and methods that are developed and
employed for working with this unique new source
of geographic information.
Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank the
anonymous reviewers who have provided constructive
feedback. We also would like to thank Sarah Elwood for her
efforts in putting this publication in shape. This work is
supported by COMPASS project (COastal Marine Perception
Application for Scientific Scholarship), financed by
e-research:e-Information program of JISC (Joint Information
Systems Committee) in the United Kingdom.
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