Geocrowdsourcing CitizenScience FOSS4G

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Welcome to the GeoForAll GeoCrowd

Today citizens, acting in groups or as individuals, are generating vast volumes of geographic data and information. Citizens now have the ability to actively or passively embedded or link a geographical coordinate, object or area to digitally generated content from their smartphones, social media, sensors such as cameras or GPS, sensor networks, software embedded in devices and the Internet of things. How can we take advantage, in a sustainable and efficient manner, of these oceans of geographic data and information? Free and Open Source Software For Geoinformatics (FOSS4G) can provide citizens, scientists, policy makers and industry with a means of generating, collecting, analysing, visualising and managing these data streams. The possibilities are only limited by our imagination. Research into how to take advantage of this deluge of data can make a significant contribution to our society paving the way for a more sustainable future in a natural environment protected and enhanced for this generation and those yet to come.

There are three principal methodologies which best describe this current situation.

  • Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI): Including the famous examples of OpenStreetMap, WikiMapia, Google Mapmaker, Geograph project, etc and then many smaller less well known examples. The citizen or the group of citizens are actively and physically involved in the task of data collection, data generation, data management, etc.
  • Passive, Ambient, Involunteered Geographic Information, Geocrowdsourcing : This includes systems and services where the citizen or a group are not actively or physically involved in the task of generating, collecting, managing geographical data. This includes geocoded tweets in Twitter, georeferenced images in Instagram, geolocated social media and media content. This can also include data and information generated by 'sensors' carried by citizens such as GPS-enabled smartphone technologies, wearable devices, etc. This geocoded or georeferenced online content can then be harvested or analysed by scientists, industry and others.
  • Citizen Science: This is where citizens or groups of citizens are involved in scientific research usually with authoritative scientific organisations. There is usually a scientific question or task involved as the driver to this interaction.

The GeoForAll GeoCrowd central theme is: Using FOSS4G how can these three conceptually similar methodologies be optimally exploited by researchers and scientists in order to reuse and repurpose geographic data for sustainable development, environmental protection, education, etc?

In summary the GeoForAll GeoCrowd theme is:

  • Chaired by: Peter Mooney (Ireland) and Maria A Brovelli (Italy)
  • How do I become involved? Anyone interested in being part of this theme, subscribe here http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-GeoCrowd. Your participation is appreciated and needed! All ideas are welcome. All material posted will be helpful. If you would like to edit this Wiki page you shall need to create an account on OSGeo to give you access to Wiki editing.
  • We can be most successful with this theme if we are all happy to support the 'VGI, Geocrowdsourcing, Citizen Science and FOSS4G Guiding Principles:'
    • All material created is made available for everyone's use under an Open License
    • All material is carefully designed so that it can be extended by others
    • All participants aim to reuse, optimize, extend and add new components and information (in that order)
    • All members and participants of the theme will endeavor to keep the links and material on this Wiki page checked regularly so that broken links or changes can be detected quickly and rectified.


Who's Who Here in the GeoForAll GeoCrowd theme?

In this section we will maintain a list of people who are interested in the GeoForAll GeoCrowd theme. If you want to participate by collecting information, maintaining the page, posting ideas, links, materials, etc please add yourself to this page. This is very important to allow us to build an online community of people who are working and thinking together under the GeoForAll GeoCrowd theme.

To keep things brief please provide three pieces of information: (1) your name - you can hyperlink to your online profile page such as your homepage once it is openly accessible, (2) your current occupation, job or position and (3) one line describing your interest in the GeoForAll GeoCrowd theme.

  1. Peter Mooney
    1. Lecturer and Researcher - Maynooth University Ireland
    2. I have been working with VGI and Citizen Science for almost 10 years. I want to help citizens become involved in VGI and Citizens while spreading the messages of geocrowdsourcing, open data and FOSS4G.
  2. Maria A Brovelli
    1. Full Professor of GIS - Politecnico di Milano Italy
    2. VGI, Geocrowdsourcing and Citizen Science are themes I have been interested in and working on since many years. I strongly believe that while in the past cartographers and geographers helped in discovering new worlds, now our challenge is to rediscover our common world with new augmented eyes of environmental-social-economic equity, sustainability and participation. On this purpose the synergy people-FOSS4G plays a vital role.
  3. Marco Minghini
    1. Researcher - GEOlab Politecnico di Milano Italy
    2. VGI and Citizen Science are a core topic of my research activity. I am a fan of OSM and an advocate of FOSS4G tools and their application.
  4. Nurul Hawani Idris
    1. Lecturer & Researcher - Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
    2. Current grants related on exploring this theme- indigenous people as a geocrowdsourcing sensor, citizen scientist in tropical forest project, crowdsourcing in flood disaster and in plant disease monitoring.
  5. Venkatesh_Raghavan
    1. Professor & Researcher - Osaka City University
    2. Current VGI, Crowd Sourcing for disaster mitigation, inspection and management of urban infrastructure and landcover mapping.
  6. Vyron Antoniou
    1. Major (Hellenic Military Geographical Service) - Lecturer (Hellenic Military Academy)
    2. I have been working in the Geomatics domain since 1998. My core interests include spatial databases, GIS, VGI, spatial data quality, web/mobile mapping applications and Citizen Science (all with open-source software!).
  7. Charlie Schweik
    1. Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
    2. VGI for invasive species mapping
  8. Toshikazu Seto
    1. Project Lecturer, Center for Spatial Information Science at the University of Tokyo, Japan
    2. Current grants related on Participatory GIS, Counter Mapping, VGI for disaster mitigation and community engagement. Also, OpenGeoData - civic tech, open government
  9. Alexander Zipf
    1. Full Professor, GIScience Research Group at Heidelberg University, Germany
    2. VGI, OpenStreetMap & Citizen Science data quality and usability, accessibility mapping & navigation, VGI & Landuse, Landmarks and personalized LBS from VGI, Disaster & Risk Mapping, Missing Maps member, social media analytics, OpenRouteService.org , OSM-3D , IndoorOSM etc.

GeoForAll GeoCrowd 'Links to VGI, Geocrowdsourcing, Citizen Science and FOSS4G'

  1. VGI & Citizen Science - GEOlab Politecnico di Milano GEOlab examples, apps, publications. All software developed is FOSS4G (checked November 2015)
  2. Skandobs The Scandinavian tracking system for lynx, wolverine, brown bear and wolf (checked August 2015)
  3. OpenTreeMap OpenTreeMap is a collaborative platform for crowdsourced tree inventory, ecosystem services calculations, urban forestry analysis, and community engagement (checked August 2015)
  4. Philly Tree Map PhillyTreeMap is a web-based map database of trees in the greater Philadelphia region. The wiki-style database enables non-profits, government, volunteer organizations, and the general public to collaboratively create an accurate and informative inventory of the trees in their communities.
  5. FixMyStreet.ie Ireland's version of FixMyStreet.com - Allow citizens to report, view or discuss local problems (like graffiti, dumping, broken pavements or street lighting)
  6. Mapping for Change Mapping for Change works with groups and organisations who want to understand, improve and produce information about the places that matter to them.
  7. mPing The United States' NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory is collecting public weather reports through a free app available for smart phones or mobile devices. The app is called mPING which stands for Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground.
  8. EveryAware Enhance Environmental Awarness through Social Information Technologies. All the software and the hardware developed in the framework of the EveryAware project are open and available for download (checked August 2015)
  9. Nature's Notebook Nature's Notebook is a national online program where amateur and professional naturalists regularly record observations of plants and animals to generate long-term data sets used for scientific discovery and decision-making.
  10. Fieldtrip Open Fieldtrip-Open is a mobile mapping and data collection platform.
  11. CrowdCrafting Open sourced platform for citizen science.
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