Identifying success factors in crowdsourced geographic information use in government

Crowdsourcing geographic information in government is focusing on projects that are engaging people who are not government officials and employees in collecting, editing and sharing information with governmental bodies. This type of projects emerged in the past decade, due to technological and societal changes - such as the increased use of smartphones, combined with growing levels of education and technical abilities to use them by citizens. They also flourished due to the need for updated data in relatively quick time when financial resources are low. They range from recording the experience of feeling an earthquake to recording the location of businesses during the summer time. 50 cases of projects in which crowdsourced geographic information was used by governmental bodies across the world are analysed. About 60% of the cases were examined in 2014 and in 2017, to allow for comparison and identification of success and failure. The analysis looked at different aspects and their relationship to success: the drivers to start a project; scope and aims; stakeholders and relationships; inputs into the project; technical and organisational aspect; and problems encountered. The main key factors of the case studies were analysed with the use of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) which is an analytical method that combines quantitative and qualitative tools in sociological research. From the analysis, we can conclude that there is no “magic bullet” or a perfect methodology for a successful crowdsourcing in government project. Unless the organisation has reached maturity in the area of crowdsourcing, identifying a champion and starting a project that will not address authoritative datasets directly is a good way to ensure early success and start the process of organisational learning on how to run such projects. Governmental support and trust is undisputed. If the choice is to use new technologies, this should be accompanied by an investment of appropriate resources within the organisation to ensure that the investment bear fruits. Alternatively, using an existing technology that was successful elsewhere and investing in training and capacity building is another path for success. We also identified the importance of intermediary Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with the experience and knowledge in working with crowdsourcing within a partnership. These organizations have the knowledge and skills to implement projects at the boundary between government and the crowd, and therefore can offer the experience to ensure better implementation. Changes and improvement of public services, or a focus on environmental monitoring can be a good basis for a project. Capturing base mapping is a good point to start, too. The recommendation of the report address organisational issues, resources, and legal aspects

Why Information Matters: A Foundation for Resilience

Embracing Change: The Critical Role of Information, a research project by the Internews' Center for Innovation & Learning, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, combines Internews' longstanding effort to highlight the important role ofinformation with Rockefeller's groundbreaking work on resilience. The project focuses on three major aspects:- Building knowledge around the role of information in empowering communities to understand and adapt to different types of change: slow onset, long-term, and rapid onset / disruptive;- Identifying strategies and techniques for strengthening information ecosystems to support behavioral adaptation to disruptive change; and- Disseminating knowledge and principles to individuals, communities, the private sector, policymakers, and other partners so that they can incorporate healthy information ecosystems as a core element of their social resilience strategies

Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building

This book is a collection of the articles published the Special Issue of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information on “Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building”. The articles cover a wide range of topics regarding the applications of citizen science from a geospatial technology perspective. Several applications show the importance of Citizen Science (CitSci) and volunteered geographic information (VGI) in various stages of geodata collection, processing, analysis and visualization; and for demonstrating the capabilities, which are covered in the book. Particular emphasis is given to various problems encountered in the CitSci and VGI projects with a geospatial aspect, such as platform, tool and interface design, ontology development, spatial analysis and data quality assessment. The book also points out the needs and future research directions in these subjects, such as; (a) data quality issues especially in the light of big data; (b) ontology studies for geospatial data suited for diverse user backgrounds, data integration, and sharing; (c) development of machine learning and artificial intelligence based online tools for pattern recognition and object identification using existing repositories of CitSci and VGI projects; and (d) open science and open data practices for increasing the efficiency, decreasing the redundancy, and acknowledgement of all stakeholders

Increasing resilience to natural hazards through crowd-sourcing in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

In this project we aim to demonstrate how volcanic environments exposed to multiple hazards tend to be characterised by a lack of relevant data available both in real time and over the longer term (e.g. months to years). This can be at least partially addressed by actively involving citizens, communities, scientists and other key stakeholders in the collection, analysis and sharing of observations, samples and measurements of changes in the environment. Such community monitoring and co-production of knowledge over time can also build trusting relationships and resilience (Stone et al. 2014). There are more than 100 institutions worldwide that monitor volcanoes and other natural hazards, contribute to early warning systems and are embedded in communities. They have a key role in building resilience alongside civil protection/emergency management agencies. In this report, we propose that such institutions are involved in big data initiatives and related research projects. In particular, we suggest that tools for crowd-sourcing may be of particular value. Citizen science, community monitoring and analysis of social media can build resilience by supporting: a) coordination and collaboration between scientists, authorities and citizens, b) decision-making by institutions and individuals, c) anticipation of natural hazards by monitoring institutions, authorities and citizens, d) capacity building of institutions and communities, and e) knowledge co-production. We propose a mobile phone app with a supporting website as an appropriate crowd-sourcing tool for St Vincent and the Grenadines. The monitoring institution is the key contact for users and leads on the required specifications based on local knowledge and experience. Remote support is provided from the UK on technical issues, research integration, data management, validation and evaluation. It is intended that the app facilitates building of long-term relationships between scientists, communities and authorities. Real-time contributions and analysis of social media support early warning, real-time awareness and real-time feedback enhancing the response of scientists and authorities. The app has potential to facilitate, for example, discussions on new or revised hazards maps, multiple hazard analysis and could contribute to real-time risk monitoring. Such an approach can be scaled up to facilitate regional use – and is transferable to other countries. Challenges of such an approach include data validation and quality assurance, redundancy in the system, motivating volunteers, managing expectations and ensuring safety. A combination of recruiting a core group of known and reliable users, training workshops, a code of conduct for users, identifying information influx thresholds beyond which external support might be needed, and continuing evaluation of both the data and the process will help to address these issues. The app is duplicated on the website in case mobile phone networks are down. Development of such approaches would fit well within research programmes on building resilience. Ideally such research should be interdisciplinary in acknowledgement of the diversity and complexity of topics that this embraces. There may be funding inequality between national monitoring institutions and international research institutions but these and other in-country institutions can help drive innovation and research if they are fully involved in problem-definition and research design. New innovations arising from increasing resolution (temporal and spatial) of EO products should lead to useful near-real time products from research and operational services. The app and website can ensure such diverse products from multiple sources are accessible to communities, scientists and authorities (as appropriate). Other innovations such as machine learning and data mining of time-series data collected by monitoring institutions may lead to new insights into physical processes which can support timely decision-making by scientists in particular (e.g. increasing alert levels)

State of the World's Volunteerism Report: Universal Values for Global Well-being

The focus of this report is on the universal values that motivate people the world over to volunteer for the common good and on the impact of volunteer action on societies and individuals. The authors advocate the power of volunteering to promote cooperation, encourage participation and contribute to the well-being of individuals and of society as a whole

A Context-Aware Mobile-Based System for Crime Prevention and Emergencies

Crime is a global issue that arises as a consequence of social problems in society such as poverty and densely population due to urbanization. In large cities, governments have applied technology to support crime prevention. In this paper, a mobile-based system is proposed to increase knowledge and public awareness which may reduce the risk of crimes. A context-aware system, namely, geo-fence, is used to enable virtual fences around crime hotspots. Crime hotspots are determined using crime histories and crowd-sourced data provided by citizens. As citizens enter crime hotspots, they would be alerted and provided information. Meanwhile, if they find or experience crime, they are able to report and label the location of the crime

Using New Media and Social Media in Disaster Communication

New media and social media have changed the frame of communication that appears quickly, is interactive, and has no geographical boundaries. The media plays an essential role in disseminating accurate and responsible information in a disaster situation. The strategy of using communication media will reduce the impacts arising from disasters in the mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery phases. Through a literature review, the author presents disaster communication, strategies, and using media in disasters. The research use case studies are the natural disaster of Mount Merapi and the Covid-19 pandemic to represent non-natural disasters. The results of the analysis show that sensitivity to the situation is an adequate response in a disaster. Furthermore, new media and social media tend to be sufficient as the primary source of information for the public, coordination, and fundraising. The effectiveness of media use in the Merapi disaster is the beginning of new media and social media in disaster communication in Indonesia. This media is also used in disaster management during the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of media in both case studies is considered adequate to reduce the negative impacts arising from the disaster. It is hoped this idea will contribute to disaster communication studies.

Geoinformatics in Citizen Science

The book features contributions that report original research in the theoretical, technological, and social aspects of geoinformation methods, as applied to supporting citizen science. Specifically, the book focuses on the technological aspects of the field and their application toward the recruitment of volunteers and the collection, management, and analysis of geotagged information to support volunteer involvement in scientific projects. Internationally renowned research groups share research in three areas: First, the key methods of geoinformatics within citizen science initiatives to support scientists in discovering new knowledge in specific application domains or in performing relevant activities, such as reliable geodata filtering, management, analysis, synthesis, sharing, and visualization; second, the critical aspects of citizen science initiatives that call for emerging or novel approaches of geoinformatics to acquire and handle geoinformation; and third, novel geoinformatics research that could serve in support of citizen science

An investigation into the role of crowdsourcing in generating information for flood risk management

Flooding is a major global hazard whose management relies on an accurate understanding of its risks. Crowdsourcing represents a major opportunity for supporting flood risk management as members of the public are highly capable of producing useful flood information. This thesis explores a wide range of issues related to flood crowdsourcing using an interdisciplinary approach. Through an examination of 31 different projects a flood crowdsourcing typology was developed. This identified five key types of flood crowdsourcing: i) Incident Reporting, ii) Media Engagement, iii) Collaborative Mapping, iv) Online Volunteering and v) Passive VGI. These represent a wide range of initiatives with radically different aims, objectives, datasets and relationships with volunteers. Online Volunteering was explored in greater detail using Tomnod as a case study. This is a micro-tasking platform in which volunteers analyse satellite imagery to support disaster response. Volunteer motivations for participating on Tomnod were found to be largely altruistic. Demographics of participants were significant, with retirement, disability or long-term health problems identified as major drivers for participation. Many participants emphasised that effective communication between volunteers and the site owner is strongly linked to their appreciation of the platform. In addition, the feedback on the quality and impact of their contributions was found to be crucial in maintaining interest. Through an examination of their contributions, volunteers were found to be able to ascertain with a higher degree of accuracy, many features in satellite imagery which supervised image classification struggled to identify. This was more pronounced in poorer quality imagery where image classification had a very low accuracy. However, supervised classification was found to be far more systematic and succeeded in identifying impacts in many regions which were missed by volunteers. The efficacy of using crowdsourcing for flood risk management was explored further through the iterative development of a Collaborative Mapping web-platform called Floodcrowd. Through interviews and focus groups, stakeholders from the public and private sector expressed an interest in crowdsourcing as a tool for supporting flood risk management. Types of data which stakeholders are particularly interested in with regards to crowdsourcing differ between organisations. Yet, they typically include flood depths, photos, timeframes of events and historical background information. Through engagement activities, many citizens were found to be able and motivated to share such observations. Yet, motivations were strongly affected by the level of attention their contributions receive from authorities. This presents many opportunities as well as challenges for ensuring that the future of flood crowdsourcing improves flood risk management and does not damage stakeholder relationships with participants