A mapathon (sometime written map-a-thon) is a coordinated mapping event and a kind of editathon. The public is invited to make online map improvements in their local area to improve coverage and to help disaster risk assessment and energy management.[citation needed]
Mapathons use an online site for storing map data, such as OpenStreetMap. Google Maps was also an option until 2017. A mapathon is organized by a respective organization or a non-profit organisation or local government.
Mapathons are often held inside (armchair mapping) in a room with strong Wi-Fi for simultaneous access, assisted by satellite imagery.[1] Mapathons can also be an outside activity with online simultaneous map editing assisted by global positioning system trackers on mobile devices.
History
Missing maps mapathon events distribution for November, 2016. Image by OpenStreetMap and Missing Maps.
Google Mapathon was an annual event organized by Google that invited the public to make improvements to Google Maps, through the Google Map Maker. Google Map Maker was officially shut down on March 31, 2017.[3]
In February and March, 2013, in India, volunteers mapped local areas on Google Maps. The prizes included Samsung Galaxy Note tablets.[4] Some locals, including the competition winner Vishal Saini, mapped sensitive military installations in Pathankot. In March 2013, a right-wing Bharatiya Janata Partymember of parliament Tarun Vijay told authorities that mapping the area was against India's national map policy. Delhi police investigated the incident. Survey of India, an Indian government mapping agency, contacted Google. Google responded by denying the claim and asserting that the mapping was legal.[5][6][7] In January 2016, following an attack on the military structures in Pathankot, the Delhi High Court ruled Google to appear in Court in February, but did not make any rulings restricting Google from continuing to host the map data online.[8]
In May 2015, after a 7.9 earthquake in Nepal, online volunteers expanded the map of Nepal for two weeks. They mapped 4,000 mapping volunteers have edited 91,951 times, 29,798 segments of road and 243,500 buildings, and also expanded maps of Botswana and Philippines. The project was supported by MapGive and by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.[9][10]
In May 2015, at a White House event celebrating citizen's cartography, about 80 volunteers edited and added more than 400 roads and 1,000 buildings in OpenStreetMap. The volunteers added power outage information on 152 utilities, and mapped US parks.[9]
In February 2016 in a hotel in central Paris, France, about 60 volunteers helped the Missing Maps humanitarian project to preemptively map vulnerable parts of the world on OpenStreetMap. They used satellite imagery and field data to add 4,000 buildings and nearly 170 kilometers (105 miles) of road in Uganda. Another twelve mapathons were scheduled to take place in US and Europe.[11]
In the same month, February 2016, Missing Maps also organized a mapathon in Grenoble to map Tsangano district, Tete, Mozambique to help a local conflict between the country main party and the opposition. The Grenoble Missing Maps mapathon photos are included below.
Related Research Articles
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, real-time traffic conditions, and route planning for traveling by foot, car, bike, air and public transportation. As of 2020, Google Maps was being used by over one billion people every month around the world.
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and GIS data onto a 3D globe, allowing users to see cities and landscapes from various angles. Users can explore the globe by entering addresses and coordinates, or by using a keyboard or mouse. The program can also be downloaded on a smartphone or tablet, using a touch screen or stylus to navigate. Users may use the program to add their own data using Keyhole Markup Language and upload them through various sources, such as forums or blogs. Google Earth is able to show various kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the earth and is also a Web Map Service client. In 2019, Google revealed that Google Earth now covers more than 97 percent of the world, and has captured 10 million miles of Street View imagery.
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed geodata sources. OpenStreetMap is freely licensed under the Open Database License and as a result commonly used to make electronic maps, inform turn-by-turn navigation, assist in humanitarian aid and data visualisation. OpenStreetMap uses its own topology to store geographical features which can then be exported into other GIS file formats. The OpenStreetMap website itself is an online map, geodata search engine and editor.
Web mapping or an online mapping is the process of using maps, usually created through geographic information systems (GIS) on the World Wide Web. A web map or an online map is both served and consumed, thus, web mapping is more than just web cartography, it is a service where consumers may choose what the map will show.
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expanded to include cities and rural areas worldwide. Streets with Street View imagery available are shown as blue lines on Google Maps.
Collaborative mapping, also known as citizen 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 Waze and Yandex Map Editor.
Google Map Maker is a defunct map editing service launched by Google in June 2008. In geographies where it is hard to find providers of good map data, user contributions were used to increase map quality. Changes to Google Map Maker were intended to appear on Google Maps only after sufficient review by Google moderators. Google Map Maker was used at Google Mapathon events held annually.
Ushahidi is an open source software application which utilises user-generated reports to collate and map data. It uses the concept of crowdsourcing serving as an initial model for what has been coined as "activist mapping" – the combination of social activism, citizen journalism and geographic information. Ushahidi allows local observers to submit reports using their mobile phones or the Internet, creating an archive of events with geographic and time-date information. The Ushahidi platform is often used for crisis response, human rights reporting, and election monitoring. Ushahidi was created in the aftermath of Kenya's disputed 2007 presidential election that collected eyewitness reports of violence reported by email and text message and placed them on a Google Maps map.
Here Technologies is a Dutch multinational group specialized in mapping technologies, location data and related automotive services to individuals and companies. It is majority-owned by a consortium of German automotive companies and American semiconductor company Intel whilst other companies also own minority stakes. Its roots date back to U.S.-based Navteq in 1985, which was acquired by Finland-based Nokia in 2007. Here is currently based in The Netherlands.
The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a non-profit foundation whose aim is to support and enable the development of freely-reusable geospatial data. Founded in 2006, it is closely connected with the OpenStreetMap project, although its constitution does not prevent it supporting other projects.
Google Crisis Response is a team within Google.org that "seeks to make critical information more accessible around natural disasters and humanitarian crises". The team has responded in the past to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 2010 Pakistan floods, 2010–11 Queensland floods, February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami among other events, using Google resources and tools such as Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Person Finder, and Google Fusion Tables.
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.
Mapping Bangladesh is an online based community in Bangladesh constituted of mappers working to develop digital mapping system through contributions of citizen cartographers on Google Map Maker.
An edit-a-thon is an event where some editors of online communities such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, and LocalWiki edit and improve a specific topic or type of content. The events typically include basic editing training for new editors and may be combined with a more general social meetup. The word is a portmanteau of "edit" and "marathon". An edit-a-thon can either be "in-person" or online or a blended version of both. If it is not in-person, it is usually called a "virtual edit-a-thon" or "online edit-a-thon".
Baidu Maps is a desktop and mobile web mapping service application and technology provided by Baidu, offering satellite imagery, street maps, street view and indoor view perspectives, as well as functions such as a route planner for traveling by foot, car, or with public transport. Android and iOS applications are available.
The April 2015 Nepal earthquake killed 8,964 people and injured 21,952 more. It occurred at on Saturday, 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8Mw or 8.1Ms and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of X (Extreme). Its epicenter was east of Gorkha District at Barpak, Gorkha, roughly 85 km (53 mi) northwest of central Kathmandu, 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 Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, was of low frequency, which, along with its occurrence at an hour when many people in rural areas were working outdoors, decreased the loss of property and human lives.
Missing Maps is a humanitarian project that preemptively maps parts of the world that are vulnerable to natural disasters, conflicts, and disease epidemics. It was founded in November 2014 by the American Red Cross, British Red Cross, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, and Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders and has so far mapped large towns and cities in countries such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.
Google Mapathon is an annual mapathon event organized by Google that invites the public to make improvements to Google Maps, through the Google Map Maker. The event was held for the first time in 2013 in India, and subsequently in 2014 in Australia. The program ran onto troubled waters in India as it was accused of not sparing even the critical military-sensitive areas.
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