15 Putting 200 Million People “on the Map”: Evolving Methods …
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Guinea—the epicenter of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. The hub operated in 2015–2016 as
a physical office location with equipment, four technical staff, administrative support,
and training facilities. It acted as a base for specific mapping projects and to host
community meetings, conduct outreach events, and offer training modules designed
to boost basic computer skills and build up a large community of volunteers with
skills in various mapping and data-gathering technologies. As volunteers become
more experienced, they played a larger role in leading these activities.
The hub initially supported the rapid mapping of all communities (totaling 7000)
within 15 km of the international borders shared between Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra
Leone—focusing on water, sanitation, health, and public amenities in each community. Volunteers on motorbikes carried out the fieldwork, equipped with a smartphone
app (OpenMapKit) and other technical tools. Resulting data were published on OSM
and the Humanitarian Data Exchange, and were shared with decision makers, humanitarian workers, and community stakeholders to ensure they are well aware of water,
sanitation, health, and community resources before and during the next regional
crisis—helping them to make data-driven programming decisions and potentially
preventing or slowing the spread of infectious disease during future disease outbreaks.
Although the West Africa project has ended and the hub has closed, equipment was
donated to nascent OSM groups who continue to conduct mapping and fieldwork;
in Guinea, for example, the local mapping community conducted 10 mapathons to
support local mapping as well as disaster response activations for Hurricane Irma,
malaria prevention in Zambia, and a recent earthquake in Mexico. Over 300 community members have joined OSM Guinea and a further 400 have joined OSM
Liberia, suggesting that the investment into mapping has spurred a lasting interest in
community-based, participatory mapping.
Moving forward, the American Red Cross and its partners continue to pursue
opportunities for sustained engagement, and will continue to evaluate their methods
in order to respond to challenges and promote best practices.
15.3 Technical Tools
For remote mapping, Missing Maps trains volunteers in OSM using an in-browser
editing interface (iD Editor), which most mapathon participants have easily learned
within a few minutes of instruction. The team also produces training videos and
resources for mapping that provides a reference and examples for volunteers.
1 As
volunteers gain experience, we encourage the use of the Java OSM editor (JOSM),
which is a faster and more robust editing interface but can also be more difficult for
beginners to learn.
Beyond these existing tools, the American Red Cross introduced new efforts to
gamify remote mapping and keep trained volunteers engaged between disasters.
1 Examples are embedded into mapping tasks, available at http://www.tasks.hotosm.org.
181
Guinea—the epicenter of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. The hub operated in 2015–2016 as
a physical office location with equipment, four technical staff, administrative support,
and training facilities. It acted as a base for specific mapping projects and to host
community meetings, conduct outreach events, and offer training modules designed
to boost basic computer skills and build up a large community of volunteers with
skills in various mapping and data-gathering technologies. As volunteers become
more experienced, they played a larger role in leading these activities.
The hub initially supported the rapid mapping of all communities (totaling 7000)
within 15 km of the international borders shared between Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra
Leone—focusing on water, sanitation, health, and public amenities in each community. Volunteers on motorbikes carried out the fieldwork, equipped with a smartphone
app (OpenMapKit) and other technical tools. Resulting data were published on OSM
and the Humanitarian Data Exchange, and were shared with decision makers, humanitarian workers, and community stakeholders to ensure they are well aware of water,
sanitation, health, and community resources before and during the next regional
crisis—helping them to make data-driven programming decisions and potentially
preventing or slowing the spread of infectious disease during future disease outbreaks.
Although the West Africa project has ended and the hub has closed, equipment was
donated to nascent OSM groups who continue to conduct mapping and fieldwork;
in Guinea, for example, the local mapping community conducted 10 mapathons to
support local mapping as well as disaster response activations for Hurricane Irma,
malaria prevention in Zambia, and a recent earthquake in Mexico. Over 300 community members have joined OSM Guinea and a further 400 have joined OSM
Liberia, suggesting that the investment into mapping has spurred a lasting interest in
community-based, participatory mapping.
Moving forward, the American Red Cross and its partners continue to pursue
opportunities for sustained engagement, and will continue to evaluate their methods
in order to respond to challenges and promote best practices.
15.3 Technical Tools
For remote mapping, Missing Maps trains volunteers in OSM using an in-browser
editing interface (iD Editor), which most mapathon participants have easily learned
within a few minutes of instruction. The team also produces training videos and
resources for mapping that provides a reference and examples for volunteers.
1 As
volunteers gain experience, we encourage the use of the Java OSM editor (JOSM),
which is a faster and more robust editing interface but can also be more difficult for
beginners to learn.
Beyond these existing tools, the American Red Cross introduced new efforts to
gamify remote mapping and keep trained volunteers engaged between disasters.
1 Examples are embedded into mapping tasks, available at http://www.tasks.hotosm.org.