Crowdmapping

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Crowdmapping is a subtype of crowdsourcing [1] [2] by which aggregation of crowd-generated inputs such as captured communications and social media feeds are combined with geographic data to create a digital map that is as up-to-date as possible [3] on events such as wars, humanitarian crises, crime, elections, or natural disasters. [4] [5] [6] Such maps are typically created collaboratively by people coming together over the Internet. [3] [7]

Contents

The information can typically be sent to the map initiator or initiators by SMS or by filling out a form online and are then gathered on a map online automatically or by a dedicated group. [8] In 2010, Ushahidi released "Crowdmap" − a free and open-source platform by which anyone can start crowdmapping projects. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

Uses

Crowdmapping can be used to track fires, floods, pollution, [7] crime, political violence, the spread of disease and bring a level of transparency to fast-moving events that are difficult for traditional media to adequately cover, or problem areas [7] and longer-term trends and that may be difficult to identify through the reporting of individual events. [6]

During disasters the timeliness of relevant maps is critical as the needs and locations of victims may change rapidly. [3]

The use of crowdmapping by authorities can improve situational awareness during an incident and be used to support incident response. [7]

Crowdmaps are an efficient way to visually demonstrate the geographical spread of a phenomenon. [8]

Examples

See also

Related Research Articles

Humanitarianism relief activities to aid and assist humanity; philanthropic philosophy of active humanism

Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans, in order to better humanity for moral, altruistic and logical reasons. It is the philosophical belief in movement toward the improvement of the human race in a variety of areas, used to describe a wide number of activities relating specifically to human welfare. A practitioner is known as a humanitarian.

Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.

Crowdsourcing Obtaining services, ideas, or content from a group of people, rather than from employees or suppliers

Crowdsourcing is a sourcing model in which individuals or organizations obtain goods and services, including ideas and finances, from a large, relatively open and often rapidly-evolving group of internet users; it divides work between participants to achieve a cumulative result. The word crowdsourcing itself is a portmanteau of crowd and outsourcing, and was coined in 2006. As a mode of sourcing, crowdsourcing existed prior to the digital age.

Crowdreviewing is the practice of gathering opinion or feedback from a large number of people, typically via the internet or an online community; a portmanteau of “crowd” and “reviews”. Crowdreviewing is also often viewed as a form of crowd voting which occurs when a website gathers a large group's opinions and judgment. The concept is based on the principles of crowdsourcing and lets users submit online reviews to participate in building online metrics that measure performance. By harnessing social collaboration in the form of feedback individuals are generally able to form a more informed opinion.

Collaborative mapping is the aggregation of Web mapping and user-generated content, from a group of individuals or entities, and can take several distinct forms. With the growth of technology for storing and sharing maps, collaborative maps have become competitors to commercial services, in the case of OpenStreetMap, or components of them, as in Google Map Maker and Yandex.Map editor.

Content creation is the contribution of information to any media and most especially to digital media for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. Content is "something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing or any of various arts" for self-expression, distribution, marketing and/or publication. Typical forms of content creation include maintaining and updating web sites, blogging, article writing, photography, videography, online commentary, the maintenance of social media accounts, and editing and distribution of digital media. A Pew survey described content creation as the creation of "the material people contribute to the online world."

Ushahidi is an open source software application, and a non-profit technology company with staff in nine countries whose mission is to help marginalized people raise their voice and those who serve them to listen and respond better. It has been instrumental in creating the Kenyan tech ecosystem, known as the Silicon Savannah, and its employees have gone on to found iHub, Akirachix, and BRCK.

Citizen sourcing is the government adoption of crowdsourcing techniques for the purposes of (1) enlisting citizens in the design and execution of government services and (2) tapping into the citizenry's collective intelligence for solutions and situational awareness. Applications of citizen sourcing include:

Juliana Rotich informatician from Kenya

Juliana Rotich is an information technology professional who has developed web tools for crowdsourcing crisis information and coverage of topics related to the environment. She was the head of East Africa Country Cluster for BASF from May to December 2018. She is also a trustee of Bankinter Foundation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Spain, as well as a board member of Standard Media Group and the Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Board.

Relief 2.0 or disaster relief 2.0 is the deployment of digital information techniques in the management of disaster relief.

Crisis mapping is the real-time gathering, display and analysis of data during a crisis, usually a natural disaster or social/political conflict. Crisis mapping projects usually allows large numbers of people, including the public and crisis responders, to contribute information either remotely or from the site of the crisis. One benefit of the crisis mapping method over others is that it can increase situational awareness, since the public can report information and improve data management.

Government crowdsourcing is a form of crowdsourcing employed by governments to better leverage the collective knowledge and experience of their people by tapping into their ability to see connections, understand issues, and coordinate action. It has tended to take the form of public feedback, project development, or petitions in the past, but has grown to include public drafting of bills and constitutions, among other things. This form of public involvement in the governing process differs from older systems of popular action, from town halls to referenda, in that it is primarily conducted online or through a similar IT medium.

Jonathan D. "Jon" Gosier is an African-American software developer, investor, and philanthropist. He was named as one of Ten African Tech Voices to Follow on Twitter by CNN and one of the 25 most influential African-Americans in Technology by Business Insider. He was awarded a TED Fellowship in 2009 and later named a TED Senior Fellow. Jon is Knight News Challenge award winner for Abayima which makes crisis communications technology for disasters. In 2013 Gosier was nominated as one of three Innovators of the Year by Black Enterprise Magazine for his work with data startup MetaLayer.

Sensor journalism refers to the use of sensors to generate or collect data, then analyzing, visualizing, or using the data to support journalistic inquiry. This is related to but distinct from data journalism. Whereas data journalism relies on using historical or existing data, sensor journalism involves the creation of data with sensor tools. This also includes drone journalism.

April 2015 Nepal earthquake Earthquake on 25 April 2015 killing over 8,900 people

The April 2015 Nepal earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and injured nearly 22,000. It occurred at on 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8Mw or 8.1Ms and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of VIII (Severe). Its epicenter was east of Gorkha District at Barpak, Gorkha, and its hypocenter was at a depth of approximately 8.2 km (5.1 mi). It was the worst natural disaster to strike Nepal since the 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake. The ground motion recorded in the capital of Nepal was of low frequency, which, along with its occurrence at an hour where many people in rural areas were working outdoors, decreased the loss of property and human lives.

Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response (AIDR) is a free and open source platform to filter and classify social media messages related to emergencies, disasters, and humanitarian crises. It has been developed by the Qatar Computing Research Institute and awarded the Grand Prize for the 2015 Open Source Software World Challenge.

Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL) is a living lab and nonprofit civic technology company based in Kathmandu, Nepal that primarily works on mobile technology and mapping. KLL focuses on using GPS/GIS technology for humanitarian aims, sometimes referred to as "humanitarian mapping".

Participatory surveillance is community-based monitoring of other individuals. This term can be applied to both digital media studies and ecological field studies. In the realm of media studies, it refers to how users surveil each other using the internet. Either through the use of social media, search engines, and other web-based methods of tracking, an individual has the power to find information both freely or non freely given by the individual being searched. Issues of privacy emerge within this sphere of participatory surveillance, predominantly focused on how much information is available on the web that an individual does not consent to. More so, disease outbreak researchers can study social-media based patterns to decrease the time it takes to detect an outbreak, an emerging field of study called infodemiology. Within the realm of ecological fieldwork, participatory surveillance is used as an overarching term for the method in which indigenous and rural communities are used to gain greater accessibility to causes of disease outbreak. By using these communities, disease outbreak can be spotted earlier then through traditional means or healthcare institutions.

COVID-19 surveillance involves monitoring the spread of the coronavirus disease in order to establish the patterns of disease progression. The World Health Organization recommends active surveillance, with focus of case finding, testing and contact tracing in all transmission scenarios. COVID-19 surveillance is expected to monitor epidemiological trends, rapidly detect new cases, and based on this information, provide epidemiological information to conduct risk assessment and guide disease preparedness.

References

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