Hi all, this is an interesting thread for me as we realised pretty quickly at the Missing Maps mapathons that we needed to work out how to improve quality, while keeping the number of new mappers attending high. I'd like to share some experiences, but apologies if you've heard them before. I've only been on the HOT list since June...
Context talks and tutorials: We have short talks at the beginning to introduce mappers to the country they are to map. This is immediately followed by a tutorial from a HOTty for new mappers (using iD). These tutorials have been vital since the first Missing Maps mapathon we did in July and give the newbies a great place to start. However, it is not uncommon for newbies to forget fundemental things very quickly. The tutorial from November mapathon is here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q2GqxWXyyOsP7t7GOrZAMttg4NbpK-xe5iB8v4iOeno/edit#slide=id.p
Table top resources: The Maps Team at the British Red Cross have developed a load of different printable materials to go with the mapathons. There are various materials here and they help mappers overcome some of the more frequent problems they encounter. These are kept on google drive and anyone is more than welcome to take what they think might be useful. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_hW0KstPK1AenJDbDRFemtuMkU&authuser=0 If you do develop any of these materials, please do make a new folder and share them back on the same drive.
Images: We have also tried collecting images of the places being mapped to help mappers interpret what they are seeing on the satellite imagery. This has only recently been piloted, but some mappers have said it is useful, especially where traditional building techniques are used that make buildings hard to identify by someone from the UK! Pinterest boards can be found here: http://www.pinterest.com/MissingMaps/
Validator tables: In the last couple of events, we have set aside a validator table and invited the more committed, regular Missing Maps attendees to learn validation (Laura who started this email chain is one of them!). They sit with one or two experienced validators and review the squares being done by people in the room. This has two benefits. Firstly, we are (hopefully) training up some more validators for HOT tasks (as they seem to be in short supply) and secondly, as these validators spot repeat errors, they can actually go and find the mapper in the room and help them put it right.
Last thing (and apologies for the length of this), on John's thoughts on multiple passes for tasks... We have tried a two stage tasking process when tracing in the Bangassou region of CAR. Because the area has a lot of small villages spread over a wide area, we did one task (using large squares) to trace the road networks. Then in the second task, we identified residential areas and fed them into the tasking manager as a geojson and set up building tracing using small squares. The feedback we got suggested that this was an efficient way of handling an area of this size.
Tasks
Roads :
http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/749
Buildings : http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/748
Right, sorry for going on for so long. Look forward to more chat on this subject...
Pete
Pete Masters
Missing Maps Project Coordinator
MSF UK
+44 7921 781 518
@pedrito1414
@theMissingMaps
facebook.com/MissingMapsProject
Although I check emails more frequently, I work two days a week on the Missing Ma ps Project – if you want to catch me, see this calendar .
-----Pierre Béland <pierz...@yahoo.fr> wrote: -----
To: "bgirar...@gmail.com" <bgirar...@gmail.com>, john whelan <jwhelan0...@gmail.com>
From: Pierre Béland <pierz...@yahoo.fr>
Date: 02/01/2015 07:03PM
Cc: "hot@openstreetmap.org" <hot@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [HOT] Task manager description/instructions #591
De : Blake Girardot <bgirar...@gmail.com>
À : john whelan <jwhelan0...@gmail.com>
Cc : "hot@openstreetmap.org" <hot@openstreetmap.org>
Envoyé le : Vendredi 2 janvier 2015 10h57
Objet : Re: [HOT] Task manager description/instructions #591
On 1/2/2015 3:41 PM, john whelan wrote:
> How can we make the best use of what we have? I wonder if some sort of
> work flow might be better. Pass 1, do the major roads and towns /
> larger villages, Pass 2 rivers, pass 3 tracks, pass 4 forests etc.
> Perhaps rivers should come first?
Yes, this is for sure a good idea. Difficult to do in practice, but a
good idea.
>Certify the mappers, self
> certification would be fine but a small training course this is how to
> map a road, this is how to map a village, this is how to map a river,
> this is how to map a building (JOSM building tool?).
Again, a very good idea, and the Training WG is considering something
like this.
None of the typical mapping tasks are difficult to do, but a little bit
of specific training, like 30 mins worth, can make a huge difference
between something that is mapped and something that is well mapped.
It would really be great if we had a small training programing of some
sort, I think it could all be done on line with text and images. Again,
the Training WG is working on this idea so if anyone is interested in
helping with it please let us (training wg) know.
Or we could run online workshops for an hour or so to do mapping
training. At this point I have done 8 or 9 online training sessions and
they work out pretty well (I think :). I have also been very lucky and
received online training from Andrew Buck and Pierre Béland which was
immensely helpful.
> At the moment we seem to have a number of different people going over
> the same ground mapping the same things which to me is a waste of
> resources and no real agreement as to when a tile is complete, ie no
> service level agreement. I've even seen a building mapped over a building.
Yes and no about the waste of resources. The system is designed so that
multiple eyes will look at the mapping. The obvious version of that is
the validation process, but even that needs multiple passes to make sure
things are validated correctly.
Project managers can "validate the validations" and experienced mappers,
currently self-selected, can also "validate validations".
But multiple projects over the same area for either updates to imagery
or different mapping focuses (roads, waterways, etc) will lead to
validation of previous validations as well so there is a real benefit to
what seems like a waste of resources.
Just 2 passes over an area (initial mapping + validation) is not enough
to generate the highest quality data possible. In my experience so far a
minimum of 3 passes is needed to be sure you are getting high quality
data and the 2nd and 3rd passes are almost as much work as the first pass.
Project managers or local OSM groups often give the mapping 3rd and 4th
passes to correct and refine the initial mapping data as well.
With a simple and short training program for different types of mapping
things would improve some.
Thanks for the thoughts John.
cheers
blake
_______________________________________________
HOT mailing list
HOT@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
From: Pierre Béland <pierz...@yahoo.fr>
Date: 02/01/2015 07:03PM
Cc: "hot@openstreetmap.org" <hot@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [HOT] Task manager description/instructions #591
It certainly simplifies to first trace the major roads. We did sometimes trace in priority these roads, then landuse before mapping more in detail. But this is Crisis management and we seldom have time to proceed this way. We sometimes try to have the more experienced mappers to take care of such tasks.
One area were I see that we can make progress controlling the mapping qality is with the Mapathons. There were many Mapathons this fall, either for the Ebola outbreak or for the Missing Maps project. This brings a lot of new contributors learning how to map, making a lot of mistakes that need later to be corrected.
A Mapathon Guide would help to provide tools for the organizers to take care of the quality of the data and exchange with the participants to realize the various mistakes and the good practices (ie. Imagery interpretation, geometry, tags, etc.). This would be also more stimulating for these new contributors and help to keep more of them on the long term.
A tool like
http://overpass-api.de/achavi/ could help. Some Overpass queries would also let monitor various layers such as buildings, landuse, roads. This would both show the progress made and highlight what should be corrected.
Pierre
De : Blake Girardot <bgirar...@gmail.com>
À : john whelan <jwhelan0...@gmail.com>
Cc : "hot@openstreetmap.org" <hot@openstreetmap.org>
Envoyé le : Vendredi 2 janvier 2015 10h57
Objet : Re: [HOT] Task manager description/instructions #591
On 1/2/2015 3:41 PM, john whelan wrote:
> How can we make the best use of what we have? I wonder if some sort of
> work flow might be better. Pass 1, do the major roads and towns /
> larger villages, Pass 2 rivers, pass 3 tracks, pass 4 forests etc.
> Perhaps rivers should come first?
Yes, this is for sure a good idea. Difficult to do in practice, but a
good idea.
>Certify the mappers, self
> certification would be fine but a small training course this is how to
> map a road, this is how to map a village, this is how to map a river,
> this is how to map a building (JOSM building tool?).
Again, a very good idea, and the Training WG is considering something
like this.
None of the typical mapping tasks are difficult to do, but a little bit
of specific training, like 30 mins worth, can make a huge difference
between something that is mapped and something that is well mapped.
It would really be great if we had a small training programing of some
sort, I think it could all be done on line with text and images. Again,
the Training WG is working on this idea so if anyone is interested in
helping with it please let us (training wg) know.
Or we could run online workshops for an hour or so to do mapping
training. At this point I have done 8 or 9 online training sessions and
they work out pretty well (I think :). I have also been very lucky and
received online training from Andrew Buck and Pierre Béland which was
immensely helpful.
> At the moment we seem to have a number of different people going over
> the same ground mapping the same things which to me is a waste of
> resources and no real agreement as to when a tile is complete, ie no
> service level agreement. I've even seen a building mapped over a building.
Yes and no about the waste of resources. The system is designed so that
multiple eyes will look at the mapping. The obvious version of that is
the validation process, but even that needs multiple passes to make sure
things are validated correctly.
Project managers can "validate the validations" and experienced mappers,
currently self-selected, can also "validate validations".
But multiple projects over the same area for either updates to imagery
or different mapping focuses (roads, waterways, etc) will lead to
validation of previous validations as well so there is a real benefit to
what seems like a waste of resources.
Just 2 passes over an area (initial mapping + validation) is not enough
to generate the highest quality data possible. In my experience so far a
minimum of 3 passes is needed to be sure you are getting high quality
data and the 2nd and 3rd passes are almost as much work as the first pass.
Project managers or local OSM groups often give the mapping 3rd and 4th
passes to correct and refine the initial mapping data as well.
With a simple and short training program for different types of mapping
things would improve some.
Thanks for the thoughts John.
cheers
blake
_______________________________________________
HOT mailing list
HOT@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
_______________________________________________
HOT mailing list
HOT@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
HOT mailing list
HOT@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
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