GeoFairy2: A Cross-Institution Mobile Gateway to Location-Linked Data for In-Situ Decision Making

Abstract

To effectively disseminate location-linked information despite the existence of digital walls across institutions, this study developed a cross-institution mobile App, named GeoFairy2, to overcome the virtual gaps among multi-source datasets and aid the general users to make thorough accurate in-situ decisions. The app provides a one-stop service with relevant information to assist with instant decision making. It was tested and proven to be capable of on-demand coupling and delivering location-based information from multiple sources. The app can help general users to crack down the digital walls among information pools and serve as a one-stop retrieval place for all information. GeoFairy2 was experimented with to gather real-time and historical information about crops, soil, water, and climate. Instead of a one-way data portal, GeoFairy2 allows general users to submit photos and observations to support citizen science projects and derive new insights, and further refine the future service. The two-directional mechanism makes GeoFairy2 a useful mobile gateway to access and contribute to the rapidly growing, heterogeneous, multisource, and location-linked datasets, and pave a way to drive us into a new mobile web with more links and less digital walls across data providers and institutions.