In the past number of years use of crowdsourcing by National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCA) has grown from being a disruptive technological idea to a mainstream source of geographic data and information. Today, many NMCAs and companies within the geospatial technologies industry use crowdsourcing to update databases and registries. However, it is often difficult to find information about what projects or initiatives are currently in operation or have been used in the past. Where has crowdsourcing being used? What role did crowdsourcing play in collecting, editing or updating data and information for NMCAs, companies or other institutions?

We welcome submissions from participants who are willing to share their experiences, knowledge, expectations, use-cases, future planning, etc. for VGI and crowdsourced geospatial data and information.

The workshop has two principal aims:

• Create VGI-ME (the VGI Map of Europe). We will gather information and examples on projects and initiatives in European National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies and geospatial companies/SMEs where crowdsourcing has been successfully implemented. VGI-ME will be a conceptual ‘map’ of projects from around Europe which used crowdsourcing as a means of collecting geospatial data and information.
• Plan the design and delivery of a VGI Hackathon event in the second half of 2020 which will feature the creation of new crowdsourcing applications (mobile and web) and extending/improving existing ones. For this part of the workshop we actively encourage the participation of developers from NMCAs, universities, research institutions and companies who were/are active in developing crowdsourcing applications. We invite you to present your software, the data produced with it and its use in the organization’s workflow and discuss extensions/new ideas which can be developed as proof of concept in a hackathon with other developers and creative thinkers, in order to make our VGI apps more versatile, more user-friendly, and more effective.

The workshop will engage with stakeholders from NMCAs, the Geomatics Industry, academic research, software developers, citizens involved in geographic crowdsourcing and VGI, leaders or managers of crowdsourcing or VGI projects over 1.5 days to understand the most prominent and pressing questions related to crowdsourcing and national mapping in Europe (and beyond) today and to begin building the inventory of projects for VGI-ME.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

We invite participants to submit a short overview report (maximum 1 A4 page) of their experience with crowdsourcing in National Mapping or other related areas of the geospatial domain. The overview should highlight any specific projects or initiatives which they have been involved in, particularly in the European context. Of particular interest are projects where citizens are actively involved in the crowdsourcing activities of projects.

We also welcome short overview reports (maximum 1 A4 page) describing software development approaches to the design, implementation, delivery and maintenance of a web-based inventory system (VGI-ME) to manage information about crowdsourcing projects.

Submissions can be delivered to us before January 6^th 2020.
 

Practical details about this workshop can be found here.