Crowd-sourcing free and open geographic data: information poverty solutions for developing nations

Research Problem Research Question(s) Review and Closing Remarks

Crowd-sourcing free and open geographic data:information poverty solutions for developing

nationsin partial fulfillment of the Masters of Philosophy in Information

Technology

Stephen A. Debique

Supervisor: Dr. Adel M. Sharaf, P. Eng, SMIEEEInformation and Communications Technology

Center for Energy StudiesUniversity of Trinidad and Tobago

September 9, 2011


Outline

1 Research ProblemWhat is Geographic Data and Information?Digital Commons, Produsers and Web 2.0: Paradigm ShiftCrowd-sourcingGeographic Information Poverty in T&T

2 Research Question(s)Literature ReviewIdentification of Research QuestionsMethods and Variables of Interest

3 Review and Closing Remarks


Outline





Outline





Research Area and Topic

Digital user production,Web 2.0, and the publicdomain

Geographic informationscience (GIS) andvolunteered geographicinformation (VGI)

Behavioral economics andsocial psychology

Participatory GIS,crowdsourcing, and citizenscience


Data vs. Information

Definition

Data are symbols that represent selective measurements of thephysical and social aspects of our world (DiBiase 2011).

Definition

Whereas information is “data that is created or selected inresponse to a question” (Dibiase 2011).


What Can Be Answered by Geographic Data andTechnology?

Questions about single entities

Questions about spaceQuestions about attributesQuestions about time

Questions concerning multiple entities

Spatial relationshipsAttribute relationshipsTemporal relationships


Applications of Geographic Data and Technology

Public health

Emergency and disaster management

Social justice and community empowerment

Transportation planning and information dissemination

Utility and energy planning

Asset management

Crime fighting

Environmental monitoring...


Applications - Public Health


Applications - Emergency and Disaster Management


Applications - Social Justice and CommunityEmpowerment


Copyright and the Devaluation of Freedom


Copyright and the Devaluation of Freedom

Traditional texts and sharing

Statute of Anne, Copyright Act 1709

1886 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary andArtistic Works

1994 Agreement of Trade-Related Aspects of IntellectualProperty Rights (the TRIPs Agreement)

Utilitarian view of the majority of original lawmakers


The World Wide Web (WWW) and the ChangingEconomic Dynamics

Free software and the Free Software Definition

Definition

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, andchange it to make it do what you wish.Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can helpyour neighbor.Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release yourimprovements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

Tim Berners Lee and the WWW

Widespread peer production and sharing (Web 2.0)


The Paradigm Shift Extending to Many Information Goods

The Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) sets outprinciples to define ‘openness’ in knowledge – that’s anykind of content or data ‘from sonnets to statistics, genesto geodata’. The definition can be summed up in thestatement that “A piece of content or data is open ifanyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subjectonly, at most, to the requirement to attribute andshare-alike.”.


What is Crowd-sourcing

Definition

Crowd-sourcing is theoutsourcing of a task to a largegroup of people - normallysolicited through the WWW


Wikipedia

Established in 2001

Millions of article in 2008

Anyone is free to edit, contribute, and use it content (open)

Quality? (Lih 2004, Nature 2005)


OpenStreetMap (OSM)?

“OpenStreetMap is a project to build a free geographicdatabase of the world”

Wiki-like system - anyone free to edit, contribute, and use

A manifestation of volunteered geographic information (VGI)(Goodchild 2007)

Spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is the aggregate of agencies,technologies, people, and data that together constitute anation’s mapping enterprise (NRC 1993, Goodchild 2007).

Linus’ law and quality work done by Professor Haklay


What Do I Mean By Geographic Information Poverty?

Lack of freely available data and information for decisionmaking (Baban 2005)

“...in reality world mapping [and hence collection ofgeographic data] has been in decline for several decades”(Goodchild 2007)

Global trade negotiations have been used to limit freedom ofsharing and knowledge transfer


Another Example of the Poverty and its Importance

“collate spatial dataconcerning administrativedistricts, transport networksand population data for theCaribbean Basin”


Is OSM and by Extension VGI Part of the Solution?

Education, professional workforce, use of new technologies

Patchwork SDI and VGI (Hybrid SDI)

Lack of contribution in the Caribbean

“I will spend an hour OpenStreetMapping features onCaribbean islands from Yahoo! aerial imagery and will alsodonate £10 to the OpenStreetMap Foundation but only if 60other people will do the same.”

Lack of feasibility studies in application areas - local context


Selection of Key Literature for Developing a TheoreticalFramework

Warschauer 2002

Ostrom et al. 2005

Budhathoki et al. 2008

Coleman et al. 2009

Priedhorsky 2010

Ling et al. 2005

Ek et al. 2010

Dr. Muki Haklay’s work in this space

Mikel Maron

Warren 2010 - Grassroots mapping and others...


Theoretical Framework for Understanding Crowd-sourcedGeospatial Data Contribution

Both access and digital skills are important (Warschauer 2002)

Free and open data is part of a digital commons and can beunderstood in this context (Ostrom et al. 2005)

Several motivating factors for user content contribution andspecifically VGI (Budhathoki et al. 2008)

VGI contribution is done by a multitude of stakeholder groups(Coleman et al. 2009)

Insights from social science may help in soliciting user work -social psychology and behavioral economics (Priedhorsky2010, Ling et al., Ek et al. 2010)

Opportunity cost of contributingGoal settingPersonal valueInformation and social norms


What are the Research Questions Formulated from thisTheory

1 What factors and socio-technical barriers affect the willingnessof T&T citizens to contribute to OSM?

2 How does personal value, social norms, and goal setting affectthe willingness of T&T citizens to contribute to OSM?

3 What are the motivations for contribution to OSM in T&T

4 What is the feasibility of using OSM data and free software todessiminate public transit routing information to the generalpublic of T&T?


Research Methods

Pilot study to informsurvey instrumentation

Information/education viamapping parties

Survey instruments

Interviews

Feasibility study - publictransit


What are the Preliminary Variables of Interest?

Contribution and potential contribution (predictor)

Internet access (attribute)

Socio-demographics (attribute)

Geographic expertise (attribute)

Information on importance to T&T (treatment)

Goal setting (treatment)

Method of contribution (attribute/treatment)


Transit Web Planner and Scheduling Feasibility Study

GTFS and free software

Mixed system of public buses, ferries and private mini-busesand taxis

Multimodal planner proven feasible in the North Americancontext (Barbeau 2011)


Summary

Geographic data, its importance and VGI

Lack of contribution

Key literature and theoretical framework

Specific research questions and

Research methods, variables of interest and feasibility study


Questions?

Thank you for your time.

Contact information

[email protected]