The Use of PPGIS: Towards Reaching a Meaningful Public Participation in Spatial Planning
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors investigated the role of PPGIS in public participation in decision-making, it's meaningful to spatial planning and even to the reasonable process of local governance.
But the authors only introduced the method with“case study analysis, in-depth interviews with local authorities and officials, and analysis of planning documents”, and gave the descriptions of the PPGIS tool—geo-questionnaire.
I think this paper is not like the scientific paper, and it's difficult to find the innovations of the methodologies from the abstract and the methods part in the text.
The authors should focus on some key points ,such as"how to create the relationship(or as a reference) with the spatial planning model ", "How to make the results from the questionnaire be standardization? " and etc. and introduce in details.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
A case study of a particular example of PPGIS. Systematically described, reasonably argued and quite well written. Addresses the research questions. But lacks much critical depth. The paper would be stronger if
- more information was provided about the contexts in which the online questionnaire was administered. Who responded? What variation was there within the sample of responses? How were respondants recruited? Who designed the geo-questionnaire? To what extent do results reflect the method of participation?
- a justification was provided for the very limited range of interviews. Why were other stakeholders not given the opportunity to offer their opinions in interviews? As presented this is very much an insider account reflecting the views of professionals, instead of offering any critique of existing practice.
- more information was provided about the documentaty analysis. What methods were deployed? Which documentary and planning sources were anaysed?
- the conclusions might have been much more critical of the method and reflected in more depth on how this Polish example of PPGIS related to other planning contexts with different institutional and legislative forms, and where different methodologies of participation were involved.
Together these changes would help to move the paper to a wider and more critical focus and help it appeal to a wider audience.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This article conducts an empirical research on the use of the PPGIS with regard to involvement of citizens in participation in spatial planning. It is a good topic to investigate the role PPGIS in public participation in decision-making, the results of the research are also interesting to, but there are still some problems that should be addressed.
(1) Line 242-245: Author mentioned that “the idea of the research approach was broadened the number of thoroughly executed examples …”. However, in the paper there is missing at least a brief summary (literature review) of previous research in the field both abroad and in Poland.
(2) The author should to explain in more detail, why they choose the example of Poland, or Poznan, more respectively. What makes the case of Poznan interesting, what can bring comparative research, etc.?
(3) Line 321-322: the author should at least briefly describe the form of local self-government in Poland, because it is not clear what is the difference between the categories of town, city, municipality and its relationship.
(4) Line 146-147: When author speaks about geoparticipation (or use of GIS for participatory mapping), it would be useful to mention that geoparticipation has several dimensions (e.g., doi: 10.2478/geosc-2021-0008), which can also have impact on spatial planning.
(5) Line 551: When author mentioned issue of quality of life, there would be useful at least briefly describe this issue (e.g., doi.org/10.2478/quageo-2014-0050; doi: 10.24132/cejop_2020_2), as quality of life can impact spatial planning, as well as other activities at the local level.
(6) As one of the authors conclusions is that that the PPGIS did not result in rise of the qualitative level of public participation, more discussion would be devoted to the question of what this statement implies for the quality of governance and whether there are some possibilities how to improve level of public participation in spatial planning.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This revised version has been imrpoved a lot, but for the methodology, it's hard to find any innovations. I suggest the authors submit it to other journals.
