My presentation from the first Ushahidi and iHub Research seminar at the iHub, Nairobi and streamed online on 11 November, 2011.

1. Establishing a learning
organisation
Ushahidi and iHub Research

2. Ushahidi = Testimony
Born out of the post-election violence in Kenya in
2008, used to map reports of violence and peace
efforts throughout the country.

6. Research @ushahidi
an ethnographer’s perspective

7. 1. Philosophy
ethnography:
“the product of a cocktail of
methodologies that share the
assumption that personal
engagement with the subject is
the key to understanding a
particular culture or social setting”
SAGE Dictionary of Social Research
Methods, 2006

9. context

10. context
grounded theory

11. context
grounded theory
participant observation

12. context
grounded theory Intel
Microsoft
participant observation Nokia
Xerox

13. context
grounded theory Intel
Microsoft
participant observation Nokia
Xerox
http://ethnographymatters.net

14. context
grounded theory Intel
Microsoft
participant observation Nokia
people, artifacts, “traces” Xerox
http://ethnographymatters.net

15. 2. Research questions
1. What are best case practices that crowd-based/peer-
production communities use to organise and manage their
information?
2. How is our software being used? What are the contexts in
which our software is being deployed? What are some of
the challenges that our users are facing?
3. What opportunities are there for new products to serve
particular contexts?

16. 3. Projects
1. Understanding sources: a Wikimedia Foundation
collaboration (funded by Hivos and OSI)
2. Crowdsourcing verification: an Ushahidi/SwiftRiver
ongoing project to understand next steps for
Ushahidi verification tools
3. Future projects: trust; identity; collaboration; social
mapping

17. How Ushahidi deployers “do” verification
“Getting verified information becomes really critical during crises like Kenya. This was
really problematic because people were sending text messages to start rumors...”
David Kobia, Ushahidi Technology Director
“Our verification was based on reputation of reporting organizations and associated
individuals (marginalizing the voices of the unknown crowd)”
Jessica Heinzelman, Standby Task Force, Libya Crisis Map
“We had to work to try and convince the officials that the map was a resource they should
be endorsing, and as I recall it, one of their chief objections was the "verified" status of
the reports - they didn't want to endorse a map that had "verified" reports that weren't
actually verified by them.” Nigel McNie, Christchurch Recovery Map
verified

18. How others “do” verification
unverified because of its
place in a larger story/
Journalists: “according to an unverified conversation
source...”
Wikipedians: reliable sources (WP:RS)
story
policies; iterative improvement
Next Drop: “Is water currently
running?” verified by the crowd

19. 4. Challenges
1. How do we create feedback loops so that
developers respond iteratively to research findings?
2. How do we understand use and context in multi-
sited, international and sometimes-anonymous
settings?
3. How do we create opportunities for learning from
research communities when we have limited
resources?

20. 5. Ways to get involved
1. Join the Ushahidi research mailing list at
http://groups.google.com/group/ushahidi-research and
post relevant papers, events and questions
2. Join the Mendeley group and add papers to the group
http://www.mendeley.com/groups/1583283/ushahidi/
3. Propose/host thematic research seminars for 2012

21. Asante
hford@ushahidi.com
twitter: hfordsa