Hi Ian, 

ArcGIS Online offers to my understanding some PPGIS capabilities in their Survey123 extension, but it is not opensource. You can build some fuctionalities quite easily on top of Google Maps, but I at least have limited knowledge on how the dataset created this way look like. 

Greg Brown builds his PPGIS solutions "in-house", Aalto University nowadays buys Maptionnaire from Mapita Ltd. as a SaaS, and actually Mapita has been offering Maptionnaire to quite many universities recently. So it depends a bit on what you aim to do, but I believe if you want to do public participation with maps, Mapita has a solution that might come quite handy. 

I am happy to have a chat over the Skype, if you wish.

And just to make this clear for others - I used to work for Aalto University where I used and developed PPGIS tools in many years, and nowadays I work in Mapita Ltd. Ian and I have met previously.

Kind regards, and sorry for the slight product placement.  

Anna

Check open GIS

http://www.opengeospatial.org/

If you have skills in programming you may try R

Hello 

You can check : ArcGIS Online, CartoDB, and Mapbox.

Best,

QGIS

It is not easy to explain full percent. On the other hand GIS platforms (Esri, MapInfo, Goomedia and others)  are not sufficent for solving all of the problems and also yours which is using directly. 

You can create, your own interfaces platform which is using Visual Basic or CSharp. Interface have to connect GIS platform via using interface.

Best regards.

Hello, 

As mentioned above, i recomend you download QGIS (http://www.qgis.org/en/site/). Also there are several libraries of R very useful for analyzing spatial data. Have a look to: Using R as a GIS: https://pakillo.github.io/R-GIS-tutorial/.

Best.

Thank you everyone for your generous comments!!

I will consider these multiple options, the issue remains that I am still limited in terms of coding capabilities, which will make it difficult for me to make fully interactive applications that allow multiple users to draw, chat and so on.

The simplest place to start with will be QGIS I guess. 

Best wishes to all!

Ian

Hi Ian, 

ArcGIS Online offers to my understanding some PPGIS capabilities in their Survey123 extension, but it is not opensource. You can build some fuctionalities quite easily on top of Google Maps, but I at least have limited knowledge on how the dataset created this way look like. 

Greg Brown builds his PPGIS solutions "in-house", Aalto University nowadays buys Maptionnaire from Mapita Ltd. as a SaaS, and actually Mapita has been offering Maptionnaire to quite many universities recently. So it depends a bit on what you aim to do, but I believe if you want to do public participation with maps, Mapita has a solution that might come quite handy. 

I am happy to have a chat over the Skype, if you wish.

And just to make this clear for others - I used to work for Aalto University where I used and developed PPGIS tools in many years, and nowadays I work in Mapita Ltd. Ian and I have met previously.

Kind regards, and sorry for the slight product placement.  

Anna

Maybe you can check Bétaville developed by Carl Skelton from NYU

http://betaville.net/

Good luck!

Nicolas

QGIS should do what you need. Open source, multi platform, interface in multiple languages (40+), easy to use, very good online tutorials and training materials, works with ESRI shape files, etc. Go to qgis.org and download it.

Hello Nicolas, thanks (again) for sharing the betaville link, it seems it is still very much in Beta version, I should take the time to investigate and test it with the  3d data we have at Northumbria. It could be an interesting accessible option if it works out nicely. It still seems very much in Beta version though.

Thank you Scott for also suggesting QGIS, I have downloaded it and must get cracking to learn it properly. I hope the interactive functionalities can be easily customised. 

Anna, great to hear from you, do check your inbox. 

Best / Ian

Hi Ian, 

I don't know whether you have ever tried My Maps of google which allows for an online multiple user experience and sharing of a map. Of course there are limitations in terms of number of layers and so on. You could also have a look at geojson.io. With this one I think you can login, share and create new projects and export data. I am not sure though. You will need to investigate further. Also you can look at http://mappingforchange.org.uk/. They are not open source but I think they work with NGOs. Have a look at zeemaps.com too and whatif? planning support system (http://www.whatifinc.biz/product.php). I hope this helps. Best, Enzo

Dear Ian,  I would suggest you take a look at OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium).  This was developed because many jurisdictions are finding that the cost of keeping up with package updates is exceeding budgets.  

Dear Ian, 

I send a tutorial to use a free tool, maybe you already know it, it is Carto DB. The tutorial is in Spanish but it is very easy to follow. We can continue talking about it.

Regards

Santiago

Dear Enzo, thank you for your recommendations. I will investigate these leads as I get cracking with web-GIS tutorials. I have contacted Mapping for Change alongside other providers (CommonPlace, Carticipe, Emotional Maps, Geolive, and more), their mapping tool for public engagement is really nice. 

Dear Jim, thank you for pointing to OGC. The ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies also have interesting views and activities. 

Dear Santiago, thank you for sharing about Carto DB. I had come across it but will look at it in more depth. 

Really great that so many are responding to this question. Best wishes to everyone. 

Hi Ian,

would Open Street Map be of use? https://www.openstreetmap.org/about

best

S.

Hi Simone,

I would have to learn how to tweak Open Street Map in the same way as Google Maps to make it fully interactive to multiple users. Open Street Map as such is a great base map, and the community allows members to update it, but as such does not mediate interactive public participation. They have great projects, for example humanitarian/disaster relief mapping projects to quickly update maps in order to help local communities. 

Hi Ian, 

I am the executive director of the Neptis Foundation in Toronto, ON, Canada. We are a charitable foundation that uses its funds for research and education to understand growth and change in Canadian urban regions. Our research is mainly focussed on regional land use, transportation and environmental planning policy-making. We've had an active research program since 2000 and much of it focussed on the Toronto city-region. 

Our work has employed spatial data analysis and mapping to both support the research and communications of the research findings. Last February we released the Neptis Geoweb (www.neptisgeoweb.org), a mapping and information platform built on CartoDB (open source web mapping software) and another Ruby on Rails. The purpose of the Neptis Geoweb is to engage and educate residents on the planning policies in place that are meant to shape the future of the Toronto city-region. I think the application might be of interest to you. Take a look and let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Marcy 

Hello Marcy,

Thanks for posting and sharing about Neptis Geoweb. I had a look at the different parts of the platform, it is very interesting and provides a really good basis for engaging people about land use planning and urban affairs.

Are there plans at Neptis Foundation to make the Geoweb tool more interactive in the long run?

I am looking for tools where users can draw, comment etc., on a map (e.g. as with Social Pinpoint, coUrbanize, CommonPlace, Maptionnaire, and many others) or in a 3D urban environment (e.g. CityPlanner by Agency9).

Ideally, a platform for public engagement would have both: extensive information about land use, economic and demographic trends, AND the possibility to interact extensively with the chosen medium (2D or 3D). This would allow users to learn and find out about what's really going on (but also maybe understand that statistics can be interpreted in different ways) AND to interact on the basis of such evidence. This would be a powerful way of enabling meaningful engagement, where people don't simply express their own personal views regardless of existing planning realities. CoUrbanize is coming perhaps closer to this balance in functionalities, but doesn't come nearly as far as Neptis Geoweb in communicating open government data. 

The ability to clearly visualise open government data is very important. I remember a planner leading  a collaborative research sub-project in Stockholm(Sweden) who wanted to make cheap, dynamic visualisation tool to show demographic data over time as a basis for public engagement. He had been formerly responsible for public engagement in the local council, but had been disappointed that people who participated in consultations were not very well informed, which he thought affected the overall quality of their participation and the consultation process....

I look forward to hear if you have some views on how one could best combine information and interaction in fruitful ways.  

Kind regards

Ian