Presentation made at JRC (Joint Research Center) in Ispra, Italy, on March 26, 2013

1. OpenStreetMap: editing
and tasking mechanisms
26/03/2013
Severin Menard
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (AKA H.O.T.)

2. 1
What is open data ?
A piece of data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse,
and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the
requirement to attribute and/or share-alike.
No discrimination against Persons or Groups, or Fields
of Endeavor.
This approach brings at least public savings and
allows a fair competition between companies, what
strengthen economics.

3. 1
What is OpenStreetMap?
www.osm.org
OpenStreetMap is a web project aiming at creating a world map of the entire world,
accessible free and downloadable for anyone. It has been started in 2004 by a
student from UK.
It is based on the joint action of thousands of contributors working voluntarily.
Anyone can participate!
= +

4. 1
Mapping any visible, physical feature
www.osm.org
OSM focuses on all the visible, physical objects
like: roads, buildings, land uses, facilities (health,
education..) shops, industries, water and
sanitation, natural spaces...
OSM does not store information about
populations.

5. 1
History and Stats
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/History_of_OpenStreetMap
Since 2004 the project grew
up beyond 1,000,000 user
accounts and more than 1
billion nodes created.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/S
The ongoing OSM contributions can be followed on
http://live.openstreetmap.fr/
One year of edits can be watched on
http://vimeo.com/56374742

6. 1
“Legal” Details
Was Licensed CC-BY-SA 2.0
Moved towards ODbL
Kate Chapman's article about OdbL:
http://www.maploser.com/2012/03/03/odbl-what-the-heck-can-you-do-with-it/

7. 1
OSM governance
The ecosystem of the OSM community
Citizens
Associations
Local governments
NGOs
International Organizations (UN, WB)
Academia
Private actors:
•
Google, Microsoft, Foursquare
•
Cloudmade, Geofabrik, Camptocamp & DevelopmentSeeds
The growth of the OSM project is fostered by
•
OpenStreetMap Foundation & local Chapters (, )
•
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team () Hum/Dev contexts

8. 1
Free mapping and quality
Idea: A large number of
individuals contributing together
will tend to create high quality
data.
Different kind of practises and
tools strengthen this.
La cartographie Collaborative

9. 1
OSM Wiki
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org

10. 1
OSM mailing lists (geographic, thematic)
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo

11. 1
Documentation: Floss Manual
http://fr.flossmanuals.net/openstreetmap

12. 1
Quality assurance in OpenStreetMap :
validation tools for users within the editors

13. 1
Quality assurance in OpenStreetMap :
Specific checking services
Eg: Keepright!

14. 1
History
The complete history of every object is accessible

15. 1
The quality of OSM data
demonstrated by scientific researches
The analysis shows that, where OSM was
collected by several
users and benefited from some quality
assurance, the quality
of the data is comparable and can be fit for
many applications.
The positional accuracy is about 6 metres,
which is expected
for the data collection methods that are
used in OSM. The
comparison of motorways shows about
80% overlap between
OSM and Ordnance Survey .
Quality: Muki Aklay (UCL)
positional accuracy comparisons
United Kingdom: OSM -
Ordnance Survey Meridian II
database
Haiti: OSM - GoogleMapMaker
– MINUSTAH/CNIGS

16. 1
OSM is a free map,
not submitted to political constraints
Example in China where OSM has no random offset

17. 1
What are the OSM topological features?

18. 1
OSM Data Structure
Based on the idea of key/value pairs
highway=primary
building=yes
name=I66
address=123 Main Street
city=Somewhere
amenity=hospital
name=Sacred Heart

19. 1
How tags/attributes are defined?
If the tagging system is fully flexible, allowing anyone to create new keys/values, it is
strongly recommended to use the already existing, debated, approved and described tags
so that the OSM data remains consolidated as much as possible.
The OSM tags can be found on the wiki : http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features

20. 1
Contributing to OSM: mapping over Imagery
Bing allows the OpenStreetMap contributors to trace over all its imagery.

21. 1
Contributing to OSM: Mapping
Parties

22. 1
Tools to contribute in OSM:
GPS devices
Most Any GPS Will Work

23. 1
Tools to contribute in OSM:
Walking of Field Papers
http://walking-papers.org/ or http://fieldpapers.org/
Printable Map
Collect Data by Writing
Scan and Upload
Edit for OpenStreetMap

24. 1
Tools to contribute in OSM:
Walking of Field Papers
http://walking-papers.org/ or http://fieldpapers.org/

25. 1
Les outils utilisés :
Tools to contribute annoter
les cartes de terrain à in OSM:
Walking of Field Papers
http://walking-papers.org/ or http://fieldpapers.org/

26. 1
Tools to contribute in OSM:
editors
Potlatch
JOSM

27. 1
Potlatch
The Editor when you go to http://www.osm.org and hit “Edit”
Easy for beginners but limited and requires a permanent connection

28. 1
Java Based OpenStreetMap Editor
Can be easily enhanced, many plugins, works well with sporadic connectivity
http://josm.openstreetmap.de/

29. 1
JOSM Presets
Simplifies Editing
Creates Editing Forms
XML Based

30. 1
OpenStreetMap services:
Routing Tools

31. 1
OpenStreetMap services:
Routing Tools

32. 1
OpenStreetMap services:
Automatic City Maps
http://maposmatic.org/

33. 1
OpenStreetMap services:
Thematic maps
http://www.itoworld.com

34. 1
OpenStreetMap services:
Maps for GPS devices

35. 1
OpenStreetMap services:
Maps for smartphones
OsmAND
- Routing
- Pedestrian
- Edits/Bugs
- Edits/Bugs
& transports

36. 1
OpenStreetMap services:
Editors for smartphones
OsmTracker
- Routing
- Pedestrian
- Edits/Bugs
- Edits/Bugs
& transports
Vespucci
- light online editor
- online
- Edits/Bugs

37. 1
OpenStreetMap and humanitarian data
Interest for an open data, easily accessible for crisis response and quickly created by a
numerous community of contributors started with the earthquake that hit Haiti on
January 12, 2010.
This major disaster affected the Capital City, Port-au-Prince, and the towns on its west
side, causing maybe 200 000 casualties.
Within a few days, the response of the OSM community to map the affected areas has
been intensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XPvVcUNrjQ

38. 1
The OSM map after the Earthquake:
the best map of Port-au-Prince ever
Port-au-Prince on OSM, Port-au-Prince on OSM,
January 12, 2010 28 days later

39. 1
A new interest from the humanitarian
organizations to work with the virtual,
technical communities

40. 1
Free mapping and open data, a new
humanitarian field
A NGO has been created in August 2010 to create a bridge between the
community of OSM contributors and the humanitarian and development
stakeholders.
Humanitarian/
Development
organizations
An organization working to promote the use of open data and volunteered
geographic information within the humanitarian and development contexts
The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team activate a response to quickly provide
baseline data to the humanitarian stakeholders.
The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team also works on field projects in
Indonesia (AusAID), Haiti (USAID), Senegal (IOF), Burundi, CAR, Chad, Kenya
(DG ECHO), in order to both create baseline data and build up local capacities
by training future trainers to OSM techniques.

41. Coordination

42. 1
Coordination is part of the Digital Humanitarian Network
HOT
http://digitalhumanitarians.com

43. 1
HOT Package
Training Materials
Survey Forms
Presets for Editing
Softwares

44. 1
Training materials: LearnOSM. for Beginners,
Intermediate, Advanced Mappers or Trainers
http://learnosm.org

45. 1
Survey forms: fitting humanitarian
data models (ex: UNDIT for roads)

46. 1
Presets for Editing: available from JOSM settings

47. 1
Coordinating tool: the Tasking Manager
http://tasks.hotosm.org/

48. 1
Coordinating tool: the Tasking Manager
http://tasks.hotosm.org/
TM jobs for a crisis, based on Bing Imagery:
example of Zongo, DR Congo
TM jobs for a crisis, based on other Imagery sources:
example of Kitchanga, DR Congo with Nextview imagery
TM jobs for a crisis, input with Crowdsource Image Recognition:
example of South of Mopti, Mali
TM jobs to prepare a field survey:
example of Mongo, Chad

49. 1
Results of an HOT Activation:
Example with Mali

50. Questions?
Kate Chapman
severin.menard@hotosm.org
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (AKA
H.O.T.)