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

This compendium of ideas on using the retrospective approach to mine for GIS nuggets addresses two needs: 1) It is a means to involve many more people in the GIS retrospective program; 2) It creates an initial compilation of ideas which directly contribute to mining the various literatures – corporate/institutional-private; corporate/institutional-public; learned legal; oversight agency; popular (media); professional; public interest; etc. – for nuggets such as: New or different ways to add to GIS technology: New or different reasons to add to geospatial information; and, New or different uses of GIScience research methods. Four design principles (Focus on connecting “ideas” and “nuggets” Use a modular approach; Limit the modules to those required to effectively and efficiently launch the project; and Make it easy for those with different interests to modify the content of modules) provide clear instructions and directions throughout the compendium-building process. And, each of the four ideabased compendium modules (Ideas about “doing”; Ideas about objects of attention; Principal GIS components as ideas and sources of ideas; and Ideas as questions and questions as ideas) can readily be expanded, extended, contracted, re-oriented, etc., to accommodate general as well as particular interests affecting decisions about principal GIS components that are identified, adopted, and implemented by governments, businesses, learning centres, research centres, and other users of GIS technology and GIScience methods, techniques, and operations.