Developing a Compendium of Ideas on Using the Retrospective Approach to Mine for GIS Nuggets: Initial Considerations

The compendium of ideas paper addresses two needs: 1) Involving more people in the GIS retrospective program; 2) Creating an initial compilation of ideas which promote mining the various literatures – public, learned, popular (media), professional, etc. – for nuggets such as new ways to add to GIS technology, new reasons to add to geospatial information, and, new uses of GIScience research methods. Four design principles (connecting “ideas” and “nuggets”, using a modular approach, limiting modules to those critical to launch the project; and making it easy to modify modules) provide clear directions throughout the compendium-building process. And, each of the four modules (ideas about doing; ideas about objects of attention; principal GIS components as ideas and spawners of ideas; and, ideas as questions and questions as ideas) can be oriented to pursue general or particular interests that are held by all users of GIS technology and GIScience methods, techniques, and operations.