Civic apps, OSM and State / Authoritative data

Civic apps and State data

How can the civic apps model be brought to the state level? - what data sets does the state have that would be interesting to app developers?

Platforms for developing Civic Apps:

- http://data.oregon.gov : contains geographic and non-geographic data

- GIS web services by Oregon GEO

OSM and authoritative data

- how can entities that generate authoritative data participate effectively in OSM? - how can crowd-sourcing be used to feed into authoritative data source? Develop workflow - organizations have to be willing to accept information into an authoritative set (don’t start a community effort if you are going to reject 95% of contributions) - once data is committed to OSM, it falls under OSM license (does this present any problems?)

Using apps to generate data

Some examples:

   * WAZE - crowd-sourcing roads from drivers
   * Walking Papers: annotate print-out map with scannable ID tag
   * Android/Iphone Apps to gather OSM points of interest data
   * Smartphone / camera&gps to share geotagged pictures with flikr, picassa, etc.

Announcement mechanism is needed - reaching the community to let them know what is needed. There may already be apps that do what you want, you may just need to lay out clear goals for your project and tell folks what app to use, and what data to collect

Community is not instant - you build it by connecting w/ existing communities. e.g. Birders represent one of the largest longest existing crowd sourcing communities - if your project is relevant to them, it would be crazy not to try to connect with them...

Tsunami - signs photo contest idea: Collect the locations of tsunami signs by taking pictures (of yourself?) at a tsunami sign w/ GPS enabled smart phones. Could have different categories for prizes: person w/ most photos, best costume, etc.

How to keep volunteer communities motivated

- have clear goals, easy contribution pathways - create immediate value (e.g. instantly see your photo in a group Flikr stream) - give it back to them w/ improvements - share derivatives with the community - develop a forum/announcement (associated w/ OR spatial data library?) to help serve as online community - don’t overrun existing communities

Incentives?

- Public recognition - exposure, leading to job prospects - cash awards

Create clearinghouse of existing apps (like civicapps)

HB 2372 creating a data advisory board - this would be a place to bring data requests and make exposure of state data sets easier for the public

Some Resources:

   * Oregon GEO Data Clearinghouse: http://gis.oregon.gov/DAS/EISPD/GEO/sdlibrary.shtml
   * Portland Civic Apps: http://civicapps.org/
   * Oregon’s new ‘open data’ site: http://data.oregon.gov
   * Mobile Apps Development Intellectsoft US

Contact info: Erik Endrulat | State of Oregon Geospatial Enterprise Office erik.endrulat@state.or.us | Twitter: @OregonGEO

Return to [ http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/PDX-OSGEO#Unconference_Sessions 2011 Unconference Sessions].