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\title{GIS for All: Exploring the Barriers and Opportunities for Underexploited GIS Applications}
\subtitle{}
\author{by Hao Ye$^{1}$, Michael Brown$^{2}$, and Jenny Harding$^{3}$ 

\medskip
\noindent{1: Nottingham Geospatial Institute, University of Nottingham; 2: Horizon Digital Economy Institute, University of Nottingham; 3: Ordnance Survey Southampton. \email{isxhy@hotmail.com}}}

\maketitle

\subsection*{Abstract}

Geographical Information Systems have been existed since the early 1960s, but evidence suggests that adoption of GIS
technologies still remains relatively low in many sectors. We will explore both the barriers that affect the
utilisation of GIS and opportunities to overcome these barriers. As part of this exploration we performed a literature
review, collected responses from quantitative questionnaire survey and interviewed a range of technical and domain
experts. Having analysed and collated the results of these studies we have identified ways forward for future research
and development to facilitate wider spread adoption and exploitation of GIS applications.  Our discussion focuses on
the importance of open-source GIS software, open data and cloud computing as key mediators for breaking the barriers
and promoting the wider appropriation of GIS based solutions.

\textbf{Keywords: }
GIS barriers, GIS opportunities, Open-Source GIS, Open Data, OpenStreetMap, Cloud Computing.

\section[1. Introduction]{1. Introduction}
The development of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) began in the early 1960s and rapidly advanced since the late
1980s. Over the past 50 years, GIS technology has been increasingly introduced to a wide range of sectors. In addition
to planning agencies and local governments, many other sectors have been involved, such as social science,
transportation, earth science, military, agriculture, environmental protection, etc. The integration of GIS technology
in traditional geospatial tasks provides a number of optimal solutions for individuals/groups, e.g. policy developers,
decision-makers, managers, researchers, and allows the performance of existing tasks cheaper, faster and more
completely (Elangovan 2006). 

The multidisciplinary nature of GIS technology means that the diffusion, appropriation and use of GIS technologies are
distributed in a variety of subject domains, was and is often regarded as a new technology or approach on traditional
task with specific disciplines. This characteristic means that the adoption of GIS technologies have not yet fully
delivered its potential or adequately addressed the need of GIS users in many domains (Ventura 1995, Nedovic-Budic
1999). Early studies have mentioned that most users adopt GIS technology in relatively simple applications but rarely
use it for sophisticated tasks (Nedovic-Budic 1998). More specifically, these studies indicated that the expectation of
GIS technology in the areas of geospatial analysis and decision-making was particularly high but the penetration is
relatively low. The task demands were either not achieved at all or not achieved as expected due to barriers and
factors that hinder the utilisation of GIS.

Some researchers have investigated the direct or indirect barriers which affect the adoption rate of GIS from early
stages (Ventura 1995, Nedovic-Budic 1999, Esnard 2007, Akingbade et al. 2009). This previous work has identified the
existing barriers found for effective use of GIS and classified them into two board groups(Brown 1996, Brown \& Brudney
1998, Esnard 2007,{ }Yap et al. 2008, Asligui Gocmen \& Venturac 2012) ;

\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{Organisational barriers}: generally referred to department factors, such as lack of staff (e.g.
constraints by size of the team or funding), lack of purpose or mission to promote GIS application and lack of
collaborators and networking.
\item \textbf{Technical barriers:} including lack of context, insufficient software and tools, lack of reliable data and
lack of technical knowledge.
\end{itemize}
In addition, another difficulty is the fast paced updating and development of GIS technology. Empirical knowledge is
still scarce on the changing barriers accompanied with rapid advances of GIS technology, as well as potential solutions
to justify the possibility for problem-solving. 

The aim of this paper is to gather information from the literature, as well as questionnaire responses and expert
opinions to identify and update the GIS barriers. In addition we aim to explore the potential opportunities, in terms
of Open-Source GIS, Open-Data and Cloud Computing in overcoming these barriers. The current application domains of GIS
and existing barriers were re-examined as it is important as focal points for the identification of future opportunity
and proposal of potential solutions. This study intends to explore the following research questions: 

\begin{enumerate}
\item Who are the current users of GIS and what is the current state of GIS applications? 
\item What current opportunities exist for exploitation of GIS beyond commonly accepted applications? 
\item What are the existing barriers that result in the underutilisation of GIS? 
\item What possible solutions exist for overcoming the barriers and realising the opportunities that have been
identified? 
\end{enumerate}
This study provides a brief overview of the inroads made by GIS, highlight a way forward for GIS researchers,
professionals and developers to fulfil potential users' unmet needs and promote ever-changing practical development.
The rest of this paper is divided into 4 sections.  Section 2 gives an overview and analysis of literatures exploring
the current application and barriers of GIS in several selected domains. Next, Section 3 describes the results of a
questionnaire survey and interviews with GIS users and experts exploring this area.  Section 4 discusses the potentials
of recent technologies toward breaking the barriers. Finally section 5 provides general conclusions. 



\section[2. Literature Survey: Applications and Identified Barriers]{2. Literature Survey: Applications and
Identified Barriers}
In order to have an impression of the current state of GIS applications, as well as an update of the impediments for GIS
adoption, literature was searched and revisited, and analysis was conducted for application and barriers identified in
past studies.  In this paper the literature review focused on 4 well-known fields of GIS application, including
\textit{Government, Transportation, Commercial Sectors, Public and Educations}. The selection might not contain
comprehensive application domains, but it draws an impression about the trends of the mainstream GIS applications. The
literature search for relevant publications was performed by using web-based search engine. The search was carried out
based on a Boolean search containing the keywords such as ``GIS barriers'', or ``GIS'' and relevant `application field'
selected above. The searched articles and referenced articles containing the terms were selected and reviewed. The GIS
application domains and identified barriers were analysed and summarised.

\subsection[2.1 Government]{Government}
The government sector was an early adopter of GIS, and has been a major user over the last 20 years.{
}{GIS has been utilised in major governmental sectors such as land management, coastal condition
monitoring, census statistics, disaster management, environment protection, military, administrative purposes,
surveying, etc (}Brown \& Brudney 1998, Longley et al. 1999, Montoya 2003, Fleming et al. 2009, Sunarto 2011, Gregory
2012, Mendas \& Delali 2012). 

The review revealed that{ when GIS emerged as a valuable technology} {in the 1990s, a
number of researchers started to examine the barriers of GIS implementation in local governments (}Brown 1996,
Nedovic-Budic \& Godschalk 1996, Brown \& Brudney 1998,{). These studies primarily identified three
types of main barriers for government staffs, including: (1) lack of programs/software for desired application; (2)
lack of awareness of available tools; (3) lack of national initiatives. In recent years, some extensive studies have
been conducted to reveal that, except for former barriers, some updated barriers for GIS users. For example, current
GIS users cannot catch up with the technology advancements. One typical example is the adoption of emerging
internet-based GIS in urban planning and decision-making} (Peng 2001, Drummond \& French,{ 2008). Some
other studies suggest that the barriers of GIS adoption in planning sectors are similar to the impediment of adoption
of GIS in other governmental sectors (}Greetman \& Stillwell, 2004{). }

\subsection[2.2 Transportation]{Transportation}
{Transportation has always been one of the most important domains of GIS application. To date, GIS has
been applied to different transport problems, such as short path analysis, vehicle routing, trip investigation, road
navigation, dynamic routing, accident analysis, Intelligent Transport System (ITS) (Aultman 1998, Xu 2005,} Pons \&
Perez 2003, Kim et al 2011, Deshpande et al 2011{). }

{Past studies have revealed that transport modellers are used to coding up abstract road networks and
managing transportation data non-spatially. Many transportation planners are unfamiliar with GIS data management and
tools. Therefore, at that time the barriers to GIS utilization are likely to be technical, referred to as lack of
awareness.  Other barriers identified included insufficient tools and data required by many transportation applications
(Sutton 1996). Researcher in highway sectors summarised the barriers for implementing GIS application include: (1)
unaware the benefits of GIS; (2) lack of good communication between highway engineers and GIS engineers; (3) standards
for data consistency;  (4) insufficient data; (5) lack of knowledge in understanding GIS methods (Smith 2012).}

\subsection[2.3 Commercial Sectors]{Commercial Sectors}
Since GIS contains of many powerful software toolsets for the integration of commercial data and geographical
information, it enables a wide range of opportunities for different business domains, such as banking, insurance,
logistics, media, real estate and retail (Jafrullah 2003). A detailed summary has been provided by about the
application of GIS in commercial sectors, as well as the techniques that could be adopted for the applications by
Dangermond (2001). The primary use of GIS in commercial sectors is to analyse the distribution of customers in order to
expand customer base, improving service quality and consistent business profitability. In fact, the ``Geo-marketing''
is a term dedicated to describe the commercial GIS, which include the studies of consumer's spatial behaviours,
marketing and consumer's values, lifestyle and geographical information as well as the location of retail for market
demand and service activities (ESRI 2003, Gerard 2006).{ }

The past studies shown that the main barriers of GIS in social sectors (including commercial sectors and non-profit
sectors) are the cost of GIS and lack of internal expertise.  Finance resources were insufficient to support in-house
GIS at market value and outsourcing costs exceeding \$100 per hour are not easily justified for small and medium
organisations. It also mentioned that the increase of GIS application practices is important for the consideration of
potential selection of GIS in various sectors (Edwards, 2011).

\subsection[2.4 Public \& Education]{Public \& Education}
GIS have attracted wide interests for public and education sectors in the past 30 years, e.g. measuring libraries
accessibility, aquariums, building attack simulation, high schools and university education (Wheeler et al. 2010, Park
2012, Kevany 2003, Singh et al., 2012). 

The research of integrating GIS as tools into school curriculums have been conducted for a deeper-learning experience
and participation. However, three main challenges were identified as: (1) hardware issue (i.e. powerful computing to
store and interpret data); (2) software and data (i.e. free is important for school); (3) teaching skills and
competence (Wheeler, et al. 2010). A study conducted by Read et al. (2005) has highlighted the benefits and potentials
of adopting GIS for educational marketing, but a few significant barriers referred to general implementation were also
addressed, such as: (1) lack of data and skill exchange and cooperation between department; (2) lack of user-friendly
software interface for novice users; (3) acceptance of new tools and methods for traditional tasks; (4) expensive
geo-demographic data; (5) licence permission for GIS software. This study particularly draw attention to insufficient
GIS data sources, especially these high-quality and well-documented data. 

\medskip

{\centering
Table 1: The review summary of GIS application domain and the identified barriers.
}

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The survey in this section has conducted a condensed review of literatures about the GIS application domains, as well as
the barriers for improving GIS adoption rate. It is clear, from the summary in Table 1, that the applications domains of GIS
vary, but barriers in different sectors are not incompatible. If dividing the barriers into organisational and
technical factors described above, the government suffer more from organisational factors such as understanding
technology, lack of awareness, and lack of organisational support.  The Transportation sectors are restricted by some
technical factors such as lack of tools and expertise. The commercial sectors expect cheaper and better software, and
more reliable and convenient data. Public and Education sectors expects more cooperative and experts. These barriers
show different underutilisation and potential expectation from GIS technology.






\section[3. Questionnaire Survey for Barriers of GIS Use]{3. Questionnaire Survey for Barriers of GIS Use}

A questionnaire survey was designed to identify the entry barriers from current GIS users and underutilised
opportunities from their respective backgrounds. Questionnaires were sent to 30 candidates to inform the survey and the
authors collected 22 valid questionnaires from them. These questionnaire participants were mainly selected from two
organisations:  the school of Civil Engineering at the University of Nottingham (10 candidates, all of them are PhD
students, various engineering backgrounds) and Ordnance Survey in Southampton (12 candidates, 8 staffs in research team
and 4 intern students, all of them have geo-science backgrounds), see Table 2 for the statistical summary. Before the
survey, the authors investigated the candidates' backgrounds and their relevance to GIS. The criterion for screening
was that participants needed to have basic knowledge of GIS knowledge, and at least some experience using GIS software.

\medskip

{\centering
Table 2: The summary of participants' backgrounds.}

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The survey questionnaires were designed into two sections: the first section asked relevant personal details, e.g. major
in university, current departments; the other section includes some multiple-choice questions and open questions, both
referred to the investigations to GIS barriers and potentials. All participants were asked to complete questionnaire
and taken part in an in-depth interview exploring their responses to open questions.  



\subsection[3.1 Quantitative Results]{Quantitative Results}
In order to understand the range of expertise represented, we asked participants to report their proficiency with GIS
from one to three: 1) Beginner: just know general principles or ideas of GIS and how to use basic GIS functionalities;
2) Trained User: trained formally by GIS degree, GIS course and workshops; 3) Expert: used GIS up to 5 years or more.
The results in Figure 1 show that as is to be expected all participants reported some knowledge of GIS, but otherwise
there was a relatively even spread of expertise.



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In order to ascertain initial thoughts about barriers to entry, participants were asked to select the three most
important barriers that they have encountered from a list of seven identified during the literature review. The results
of the response were shown in Figure 2.

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From the results shown in Figure 2, the most selected factors from participants were \textit{lack of GIS traning}
(72.7\%), \textit{lack of GIS awareness} (54.5\%) and \textit{lack of funding} (45.5\%). The three factors can all be
seen as organisational factors rather than technical constraints. The development of cheaper, easier to learn GIS could
help resolve both lack of GIS lack of funding and training. Surprisingly, the results revealed that many users selected
software usability as a significant barrier, rather than lack of data and lack of software. This is an interesting
finding as many participants are novice users. This effect may be due to the fact that the first impression of GIS for
new users is related to interface or operation menus, which affects their impressions of GIS as a tool.


\medskip
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The final quantitative aspect of the questionnaire asked particiants to identify the key benefits of using GIS in their
work. Four main uses of GIS identifid during the literature reviewwere listed and users were allowed to tick multiple
options. The results show that the map presentation, is rated highest (77.3\%). In addition, an interesting finding is
that the use of GIS for decision-support and planning was only 22.7\%. Decision-support and planning using GIS are
regarded as promising applications by some but these are apparently still seen as a secondary or future functions by
many users. This might be the reason because the participatants are more engineers and researchers rather than decision
makers. 

\subsection[3.2 Barriers of GIS Use Identified]{Barriers of GIS Use Identified}
In-depth semi-structured interviews were performed with domain experts. These experts were selected as they are in close
contact with a multiplicity of GIS users from all fields having therefore an extensive knowledge about the problems and
needs of GIS users. In this research a total of 6 groups were selected for this interview, including 3 team leaders in
Ordnance Survey (i.e. Customer Service, Post-Sales Support, and User Need Research Team) and a technical researcher in
Chinese State Bureau of Surveying~and Mapping and a renowned
academic researcher at University of Nottingham.

\paragraph[3.2.1 Ordnance Survey Customer Service]{\textup{Ordnance Survey
Customer Service}}
This group noted a range of barriers to GIS use from customer reports as customer service is the main department
contacting users, including: (1) methods for data acquisition; (2) data formats and attributes; (3) data manipulation
(e.g. download, open, transformation); (4) suitable software for processing data; (5) data specifications modification;
(6) data update and maintenance; (7) data quality and reliability. In balance, Customers always hope everything is
already there without processing or transformation of anything by them. The participants noted that the majority of
customers contacting them use only basic GIS applications. These applications mainly include commercial mapping,
web-fit mapping and personal map tracking. They also noted that in many cases people contacting customer service were
not using or needing to use the more detailed geographic data or sophisticated software, highlighting demand for
easy-to-use and low-cost GIS toolsets free of obstructive technical jargon. Novice users prefer a box of toolkits and
data included and easy-to-use, but expert users have higher level demands for map data because they want to modify and
update by themselves.

\paragraph[3.2.2 Ordnance Survey Post{}-Sales Support ]{\textup{Ordnance
Survey Post-Sales Support}}
The Post-Sales team supports Customer Service staffs in resolving specific technical issues, i.e. those relating to
software, data or coding. One participant mentioned that the majority of their customers are new users of GIS and that
they come from two main sectors: \textit{Commercial }and\textit{ Government}. Currently, the main tasks from
commercial sector are focused on tracking their commercial assets e.g. water pipelines, insurance properties and
transport objects. They estimate that around 50\% of the customers are commercial users. The participant
revealed that large companies often have their own GIS teams, but most commercial
companies lack even a small team. Enquires from the government sector are often associated with the interpretation of new data products. The
majority of needs for support concern solving GIS manipulation problems, such as data format transformation. The application of GIS in government sectors varies, but participants found the majority are
interested in analysis and routing purposes. For example, using ITN (Integrated Transport Network, a type of Ordnance
Survey mapping product) in mapping and analysing footpath networks, efficient fuel consumption and addressing encoding.
Some government departments have dedicated GIS teams. These may use GIS for relatively advanced applications such as
air pollution assessment. Other government departments might use IT professional or technician to perform GIS analysis.

\paragraph[3.2.3 Ordnance Survey User Needs Researchers]{\textup{Ordnance
Survey  User Needs Researchers}}
Understanding customer's unmet needs is important for developing geographic information products. Through research barriers have been found to vary with the level of expertise of the users. For example, it is maybe relatively difficult for
novice users to transform data sets to required formats or understand the attributes within the data. However, for
users needing to carry out advanced data analysis, in depth understanding of data specifications, data restructuring
and attribute reclassification may be required.  Professional knowledge and training can be an issue even at this high
level of expertise. Another barrier to use can be insufficient computation power for large GIS data sets. Users who
require massive data volumes for national coverage may suffer from low-speed computation in their systems. Modern
developments in advanced data acquisition techniques (e.g. sensor data) increases the spatial and temporal density of
data collected and is likely to further accentuate this problem. 

\paragraph[3.2.4 Technical Researcher]{\textup{Technical Researcher}}
This participant shared the opinion that existing GIS software is too complicated for non-expert GIS users.  While many
GIS companies have made much effort in this direction, they feel that the results to date are not satisfactory. Many
simple data viewers and data enquiry tools provide simple functions, such as ArcView, Arc Explorer, but they feel that
there is a need for novice friendly GIS software that incorporates more sophisticated GIS functionality. This group
suggested two possible solutions to overcome this issue: (1) Develop domain specific GIS solutions for professional
users that allow users to complete a limited number of advanced GIS operations; (2) Use data middleware, i.e. an
abstraction layer that hides detail about hardware devices or other software from an application in order to provide
users with a seamless and simplified interaction.

\paragraph[3.2.5 Geospatial Academic Researcher]{\textup{Geospatial Academic
Researcher}}
This research group highlighted the need for GIS experts to make systems that are more closely aligned with user's ways
of thinking. According to their comments, ``the largest challenge for GIS users is GIS terminology which is regarded as
too sophisticated, too technical for user''. They have found that with applications such as Google Maps and Google
Earth, Google addressed this problem more completely than most expert GIS systems aiming at non-expert users, leading
to a move towards web services over dedicated local software, for novice users. In addition to terminology as a
barrier, they note that data acquisition should not be ignored given the current cost involved in accruing some data
sets. Open Street Map is expected to play an important role for GIS users and developers in future''.\textit{ }The
participants emphases that training is critical to solve many barriers of GIS, such as lack of awareness and software
usability\textit{{}''. }In response to potential opportunities of GIS, this group identified a wide range of
possibilities including In-car applications, real-estate, and simulation. They highlight the integration of GIS and
social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) to analyse human' behaviours in daily life as an area with huge potential,
although it does raise issues such as privacy, security and data ownership. They also mentioned the importance of earth
observation including measurements and monitoring of the earth, under water, land surface, air and water quality,
atmospheric condition and measures of the health of human, plants and animals.

\subsection[3.3 Identified GIS Barriers Summary]{Identified GIS Barriers Summary}



\medskip
{\centering
Table 3: The identified barriers from GIS users and expectation for future GIS development.}
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Based on the results of the questionnaire survey and interviews with field experts, the authors have identified some
barriers from these users and their expectations for GIS developments.

\begin{itemize}
\item Lack of awareness
\item Lack of communication
\item Entry cost
\item Lack of required software
\item Insufficient data sources
\item Lacks of computing power
\item Usability
\end{itemize}


\section[4. Potentials of Recent Technological Development towards Breaking the Barriers Identified]{4. Potential of Recent Technological Development towards Breaking the Barriers Identified}

Having explored the current uses of GIS, identified barriers that prevent its wider appropriation and exposed the
potential opportunities; we now discuss the ways to overcome these barriers with relatively recent technical
developments.

\subsection[Open-Source GIS]{Open-Source GIS}
{With the development of Open-Source community, a large number of software tools have been established.
Up to present, GIS software and toolkits have published online and allow users to freely download, and has been
summarised, see Table 4 (Chen et al. 2010). Open-Source GIS have been developed into a broad range of classification.
The main spectrum is shown in Figure 4.  Open-Source GIS can be approximately categorised as
}\textit{{Desktop GIS, Spatial DBMS, Server GIS and Web GIS, GIS Library, Database, Spatial Tools,
etc.}}{ A detailed classification and information for different types of Open-Source Software has been
elaborated  by Steiniger \& Hunter (2012).}


\medskip
Table 4: The main web sources for Open Source GIS software (from Chen et al. 2010).

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{T}{here are a number of advantages of using open-source GIS software to break the
barriers identified in previous literature and questionnaire sections. }

{The first being of Open-Source GIS is that it is free to potential users. The free Open-Source GIS
allows novice users to understand the basics of GIS with very low entry cost, and in some degree, it promotes the
perception of GIS adoption rate. In fact, this is particularly valuable for individuals, small research group, small
commercial companies, education sectors, with insufficient funding. Training sessions or workshops are easier by using
Open-Source GIS if focusing on different level of users, but there is a barrier as most of current Open-Source GIS
manuals are centred on the technical aspect of GIS rather than case study demonstration. In addition, the training
courses are often as expensive as GIS training provided by commercial software providers. }

{The second advantage of Open-Source GIS is original codes are accessible so it is convenient for
software modification.  This is highly desirable by the high-level users who want to develop their applications.
However, the quality of the open-source codes sometimes cannot guaranteed, and it also add additional cost (e.g.
learning knowledge, correct the code errors, time for coding) . Detailed and understandable document is a good approach
to solve this problem, but as stated before, it is too technical of current documents.  }

{The third advantage is Open-Source GIS is all freely available online, which enhanced the
accessibility for users from different regions, e.g. developing countries. The installation volume of Open-Source
software is less than commercial GIS Desktop software systems if only selected plug-ins are utilised. The advantages of
these technical and economic aspects offer potential for using Open-Source GIS in various organisations.  }


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Hunter 2012).}
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\subsection[4.2 Open Data and OpenStreetMap]{Open Data and OpenStreetMap}
Geospatial data is at the core of almost all GIS applications. The acquisition of available geospatial data is usually
time-consuming, expensive and may be complex. This is mainly due to the disciplinary nature of GIS, as wide range of
data is documented by different organisations with different size, format, specification, etc. In recent years many
organisations have started to release rich open data for public or developer use in order to promote GIS application
and collaboration. For example Open Street Map and Ordnance Survey's OS OpenData{\texttrademark} datasets
(OpenStreetMap 2013, OpenData 2013).  

OpenStreetMap is a specific open access data set, basically an online web map, created by volunteers to be freely
created, shared and delivered to different communities. The map formats satisfy OGC standards so that they could be
used in almost all open-source and professional GIS software. The OSM now includes a wide range of data. For some
location-based services application, it is more suitable to use OSM data. OSM has advantages over many professionally
created data sources, in terms of access to some data that is difficult for professional surveyors to obtain, such as
cycling places, city toilets, etc. OSM can be downloaded as different format on for web-mapping or desktop software
(e.g. QGIS and ArcGIS). Even some local government departments have started to use OSM for some GIS projects, such as
the Birmingham cycling parking project (Birmingham City Council 2012). 

However, it was reported that in 2010 the coverage of OSM was up to 69.8\% worldwide and  this means that the
completeness is still lower than existing commercial products (Feldman \& Morley 2012 ). The data quality of OSM is the
main concern with respect to different applications because all mappers are volunteers. In addition, the tags seem
sometimes not to be quality checked leading to confusion. A high learning curve is necessary to acquire the data and
prepare it so it can be reasonably used in own analysis. A recent study reports that the geometrical accuracy of OSM
was assessed between 5 and 10 metres, with higher accuracy in urban areas but low accuracy in rural/deprived areas)
(Feldman \& Morley 2012 ). These disadvantage limited the wide spread of OSM which might bring potential opportunities
if these issues can be solved.

\subsection[4.3 Cloud Computing]{Cloud Computing}
Cloud computing is rapidly emerging as a technology for industries who provide software, hardware and infrastructure. In
the field of GIS, the introduction of cloud computing for GIS software and services has become a popular topic. There
are several types of deployment scenarios, for example, the ESRI have attempted to develop a Cloud-based platform for
Amazon (ESRI 2012). One critical difference between GIS in cloud and traditional GIS is that it could deliver GIS
services via the internet, instead of installing and running the software on personal computers. Service users connect
to private or public clouds (a set of connected computing computers) and request service from cloud providers
(Kouyoumjian 2010). Due to completely different service mode, the future cloud GIS might offer many
benefits and some of them might break the barriers of current barriers. The summary in Table 5 organises a set of
potential advantages of GIS, as well as the analysis of their potential to break the barriers of GIS. 


\medskip
{\centering
Table 5: Summary of potential benefits and issues of Cloud GIS.}

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   %\label{fig:figure_label}
\end{figure}


Cloud GIS indeed can potentially provide new benefits based on traditional GIS, such as promoting productivity and
reduce cost. Particularly, as the identified barrier of high-computing requirement for professional users, the
advantage of cloud computing can help meet this demand are hitting the ceiling of hardware cost, storage space and
computation resources (Willoughby 2011). However, some potential issues will be promoted; for
example, it is difficult to judge whether it is safe to send data (e.g. sensitive data) onto a cloud server.


\section[5. Conclusions]{5. Conclusions}

The research in this paper explored both the barriers that affect the utilisation of GIS and
opportunities to overcome these barriers. The research provides a literature review related to the application domains
of GIS, as well as the identified barriers. Next, a survey analysis from a pool of selected participants was carried
out. The results from survey respondents showed that the applications of GIS still confront many barriers, including:
(1) lack of awareness; (2) lack of communication; (3) entry cost; (4) lack of required software; (5) insufficient data
sources;(6) lacks of computing power; (7) usability. In addition, many applications are still focused on traditional
map presentation and geometry and topology based querying, decision-support and database management as a high-level
functions are still under-utilised. 

The research discussed a set of potential solutions to break the barriers and create potential opportunities for GIS
development. For example, the development of Open-Source GIS offers a set of rich software toolsets in many different
fields that could contribute efficiency and cost-effectiveness for these challenges; such as reducing entry cost,
improve accessibility, provide more tools. Open data potentially offers users with free and easy-to-use data. This
research addressed OpenStreetMap as a rich data source, but the information completeness is low compared to some
commercial products and quality of data is a concern that must be considered. The Cloud Computing potentially provides
on-demand and high performance computation. However, it is sensitive to send data to the servers as it causes privacy
issue of data owners. In balance, this research provides some ideas to put forward these valuable resources for
developing potential GIS solutions in these identified domains.


\paragraph{\textup{Acknowledgement}} This work was carried out in collaboration with Horizon Digital Economy Research, the University of Nottingham, through
the support of RCUK grant EP/G065802/1. We would appreciate the contributions research team of all survey participants
during entire research. We would also appreciate the comments and feedback provided by the reviewers which were
extremely helpful in improving the quality of this paper.


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\end{description}


\end{footnotesize}



\endinput
