The development of
the Global Navigation System and wireless networking technologies have changed
the way we live, communicate, share information and even the collection of
geospatial data in the field. Along with wireless networking technologies, the
improvement in computational power of handheld devices such as smartphones,
tablet PCs, ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPCs) and netbook computers allow
field users to connect, store and stream large amounts of geospatial data from
the web-server. Nowadays, geospatial data collection is more flexible and
timely manner. In this paper we discuss field data collection using a
smartphone and web-based GIS system, which collects, integrates, visualizes and
analyzes the collected data in real-time. We built a web-GIS system for
creating a user account, acquiring coordinates from GPS embedded devices or
wireless access points, and providing a user-friendly survey form. The
collected data can be visualized and analyzed by performing thematic mapping,
labeling, symbolizing, querying and generating a summary report. We tested this
system on a university campus management system, in which we collected
information on illegal disposal sites and parking events within the university
campus.