VGI in the Geoweb

The advent of user-generated content, crowdsourcing and other forms of lay data generation have led to opposing arguments about the quality and reliability of data in the geoweb. The main focus of this chapter is an ‘experiment' to test the quality, validity and lay monitoring of volunteered geographic information (VGI) data. Given the growing importance of VGI, in particular its very different sources and potential uses, it is important that we also consider how this movement affects the ways in which we re-envision the pedagogy of geographic education. Accordingly, a sub-theme of this paper focuses on the manner in which the VGI experiment is undertaken: the experiment is run with students as a means of complementing their otherwise technical GIS training with primary research that exposes them to the wider social issues and debates relating to geographic data. We discuss the implications of this research project both for observers of the development of VGI and the pedagogy of GIS teaching and learning.