“How good is VGI? A comparative study of OpenStreetMap and Ordnance Survey datasets” – published
3 August, 2010
The process of academic publication takes a long time, so only now my paper from 2008 is finally in print.
So the paper, which should be cited as:
“Haklay, M., 2010, How good is volunteered geographical information? A comparative study of OpenStreetMap and Ordnance Survey datasets” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 37(4) 682 – 703″
It’s abstract is:
Within the framework of Web 2.0 mapping applications, the most striking example of a geographical application is the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project. OSM aims to create a free digital map of the world and is implemented through the engagement of participants in a mode similar to software development in Open Source projects. The information is collected by many participants, collated on a central database, and distributed in multiple digital formats through the World Wide Web. This type of information was termed ‘Volunteered Geographical Information’ (VGI) by Goodchild, 2007. However, to date there has been no systematic analysis of the quality of VGI. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing OSM information. The examination focuses on analysis of its quality through a comparison with Ordnance Survey (OS) datasets. The analysis focuses on London and England, since OSM started in London in August 2004 and therefore the study of these geographies provides the best understanding of the achievements and difficulties of VGI. The analysis shows that OSM information can be fairly accurate: on average within about 6 m of the position recorded by the OS, and with approximately 80% overlap of motorway objects between the two datasets. In the space of four years, OSM has captured about 29% of the area of England, of which approximately 24% are digitised lines without a complete set of attributes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings to the study of VGI as well as suggesting future research directions.
The paper can be found here. If you are interest in a copy of the published version, email me.
3 August, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Good news! Can you make a copy available for free download? The link seems to be to a py site; or at least the PDF is marked “restricted download”.
3 August, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Unfortunately, because of the close system of academic publications, the only way to get a copy is to email me.
4 August, 2010 at 1:53 am
Thanks for the PDF, I really appreciate it.
It’s total B.S. that academic publications are a closed system, but whaddaryagonnado.
8 October, 2010 at 11:10 am
[...] Calling one form of open data ‘authoritative’ versus another might make sense in the professional geospatial ranks where years of training, tightened process, and high-end tools are deployed. However, there are a few studies that seem to point to equal or better quality of crowdsourced data versus commerial data, and those data provided by national mapping agencies (see the VGI-Net, and a study comparing OS to OSM data quality). [...]
26 September, 2011 at 6:48 am
[...] [7] See Haklay, M., 2010, “How good is volunteered geographical information? A comparative study of OpenStreetMap and Ordnance Survey datasets” at http://povesham.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/how-good-is-vgi-a-comparative-study-of-openstreetmap-and-or… [...]