Talking about Place (2010-2014)

Tapping Human Knowledge to Enrich National Spatial Data Sets

Professor Lesley Stirling et al
ARC Linkage Project LP100200199

Place descriptions are a common way for people to describe a location, but no current tools are smart enough to understand them. Emergency call centres are risking lives, address problems cost billions per year (USPS), and users of navigation or web services are frustrated. This project possessed an interdisciplinary approach to automatically interpret human place descriptions. It developed novel methods to capture place names with their meaning for smarter databases and automatic interpretation procedures. The acquired knowledge is be an important step forward for Australia's data custodians and for users. Australia's location information industry gained a significant advantage in a highly competitive global market.