Enabling Spatial Search and Geovisualization in Archonnex

Abstract

This presentation, prepared for the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting 2019 in Washington, D.C., discussed an ICPSR pilot project to enable spatial search and geovisualization functions in the Archonnex system. The emergence of spatial data infrastructures has promoted scientific research in diverse disciplines. However, the use of spatial information in social science communities is still limited. A key issue is the lack of spatial search and geovisualization functions in the social science archives. This is largely due to the heterogeneity of social science datasets, which makes it challenging to extract and curate spatial metadata efficiently and accurately. This work provides an initial attempt to develop a semi-automatic workflow to enable the curation and search of spatial metadata in social science data archives. The spatial data are extracted and loaded into a spatial database and published in an OGC-compliant map server. The candidate spatial metadata is extracted from the source data, which are subsequently validated and corrected by curators in a web-based map editor. The spatial metadata is then indexed in a search engine and integrated into the search and exploration UI for end users. The goal of this project is to enable the spatial search and geovisualization functions in ICPSR's Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) - Archonnex. The integration of spatial information in Archonnex opens the door to various types of spatial analysis on the social science datasets, which could greatly promote the use of spatial methods in social science research.