This thesis project focuses on designing and programming an implementation of a geovisual analytic technique to evaluate online participatory decision making. The 4D (spatio-temporal) geovisualization technique called a "Grapevine" was developed by researchers at University of Washington, to evaluate the quality and scale of participatory decision interactions during an online discussion about improving transportation in the central Puget Sound region. The 4D aspect of the technique derives from its representation of location (latitude, longitude), type of discourse interaction, and time of its occurrence. The theory behind the grapevine comes from two National Research Council (NRC) publications that synthesized research on how the "analytic-deliberative" process can improve decision making about risks to public health, public safety, and the environment. The grapevine technique can be used to distil and cluster specific types of on-line discourse events, rank the quality of on-line participation and represent spatial trends in on-line discourses. This work is about the automation of grapevine functionalities including robust database queries in a desktop Geographic Information System (GIS) environment based on Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) ArcGIS software.
