Using VGI to enhance user judgements of quality and authority

Amateur Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has been used together with Professional Geographic Information (PGI) since its inception during the mid 00's alongside neogeography. While the geographic accuracy and quality of VGI has been demonstrated to be more than good enough, no previous research has been published on the influence VGI has on the user perceptions of the mashup. This paper presents a quantitative investigation into how including VGI in mashups, and telling users their mashup contains VGI influences user perceptions of quality and authority- which ultimately decide if the user wishes to utilise the mashup or not.