Measuring consensus for collaborative decision-making: A GIS-based approach

A variety of GIS-based collaborative decision support procedures exist that aim at involving the public in community planning and decision-making processes. Although the importance of consensus-building methods has been recognized in the collaborative decision support applications, there has been very little research addressing the problem of measuring consensus in the context of spatial collaborative decision-making. The main aim of this paper is to present an implementation of a consensus measuring procedure within WebGIS-based collaborative decision support tool. The collaborative tool, called ParticipatoryGIS.com, has been used for tackling a site-selection problem in the Town of Canmore, Alberta.