As far as I can tell, Nelson et al. (2006) 'Towards development of a high quality public domain global roads database' and Taylor & Caquard (2006) Cybercartography: Maps and Mapping in the Information Era are the first peer-reviewed papers that mention OpenStreetMap. Since then, OpenStreetMap has received plenty of academic attention. More 'conservative' search engines such as … Continue reading OpenStreetMap studies (and why VGI not equal OSM)
Today, OpenStreetMap celebrates 10 years of operation as counted from the date of registration. I've heard about the project when it was in early stages, mostly because I knew Steve Coast when I was studying for my Ph.D. at UCL. As a result, I was also able to secured the first ever research grant that focused … Continue reading Happy 10th Birthday, OpenStreetMap!
'More or Less' is a good programme on BBC Radio 4. Regularly exploring the numbers and the evidence behind news stories and other important things, and checking if they stand out. However, the piece that was broadcast this week about Golf courses and housing in the UK provides a nice demonstration of when not to … Continue reading When not to use crowdsourced data…
Thursday marked the launch of The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) report on volunteering impact where they summarised a three year project that explored motivations, changes in pro-environmental behaviour, wellbeing and community resilience. The report is worth a read as it goes beyond the direct impact on the local environment of TCV activities, and demonstrates how involvement in environmental volunteering can … Continue reading The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) volunteering impact report
Following the two previous assertions, namely that: ‘you can be supported by a huge crowd for a very short time, or by few for a long time, but you can’t have a huge crowd all of the time (unless data collection is passive)’ (original post here) And ‘All information sources are heterogeneous, but some are more … Continue reading Assertions on crowdsourced geographic information & citizen science #3
Following the last post, which focused on an assertion about crowdsourced geographic information and citizen science I continue with another observation. As was noted in the previous post, these can be treated as 'laws' as they seem to emerge as common patterns from multiple projects in different areas of activity - from citizen science to crowdsourced … Continue reading Assertions on crowdsourced geographic information & citizen science #2
Looking across the range of crowdsourced geographic information activities, some regular patterns are emerging and it might be useful to start notice them as a way to think about what is possible or not possible to do in this area. Since I don't like the concept of 'laws' - as in Tobler's first law of … Continue reading Assertions on crowdsourced geographic information & citizen science #1
There is something in the physical presence of book that is pleasurable. Receiving the copy of Introducing Human Geographies was special, as I have contributed a chapter about Geographic Information Systems to the 'cartographies' section. It might be a response to Ron Johnston critique of Human Geography textbooks or a decision by the editors to extend the … Continue reading GIS chapter in ‘Introducing Human Geographies’
The Consumers' Association Which? magazine is probably not the first place to turn to when you look for usability studies. Especially not if you're interested in computer technology - for that, there are sources such as PC Magazine on the consumer side, and professional magazines such as Interactions from Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer-Human … Continue reading Usability, SatNavs and Which?
At the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, I presented during the session 'Information Geographies: Online Power, Representation and Voice', which was organised by Mark Graham (Oxford Internet Institute) and Matthew Zook (University of Kentucky). For an early morning session on a Saturday, the session was well attended - and the papers … Continue reading ‘Nobody wants to do council estates’ – digital divide, spatial justice and outliers – AAG 2012
Po Ve Sham - Muki Haklay's personal blog 