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Crowdsourcing, citizen science or volunteered geographic information? The current state of crowdsourced geographic information

See, Linda; Mooney, Peter; Foody, Giles M.; Bastin, Lucy; Comber, A.; Estima, Jacinto; Fritz, Steffen; Kerle, Norman; Jiang, Bin; Laakso, Mari; Liu, Hai-Ying; Mil?inski, Grega; Nik�i?, Matej; Painho, Marco; Podor, Andrea; Olteanu-Raimond, Ana-Maria; Rutzinger, Martin

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Authors

Linda See

Peter Mooney

GILES FOODY giles.foody@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor of Geographical Information

Lucy Bastin

A. Comber

Jacinto Estima

Steffen Fritz

Norman Kerle

Bin Jiang

Mari Laakso

Hai-Ying Liu

Grega Mil?inski

Matej Nik�i?

Marco Painho

Andrea Podor

Ana-Maria Olteanu-Raimond

Martin Rutzinger



Abstract

Citizens are increasingly becoming an important source of geographic information, sometimes entering domains that had until recently been the exclusive realm of authoritative agencies. This activity has a very diverse character as it can, amongst other things, be active or passive, involve spatial or aspatial data and the data provided can be variable in terms of key attributes such as format, description and quality. Unsurprisingly, therefore, there are a variety of terms used to describe data arising from citizens. In this article, the expressions used to describe citizen sensing of geographic information are reviewed and their use over time explored, prior to categorizing them and highlighting key issues in the current state of the subject. The latter involved a review of ~100 Internet sites with particular focus on their thematic topic, the nature of the data and issues such as incentives for contributors. This review suggests that most sites involve active rather than passive contribution, with citizens typically motivated by the desire to aid a worthy cause, often receiving little training. As such, this article provides a snapshot of the role of citizens in crowdsourcing geographic information and a guide to the current status of this rapidly emerging and evolving subject.

Citation

See, L., Mooney, P., Foody, G. M., Bastin, L., Comber, A., Estima, J., …Rutzinger, M. (2016). Crowdsourcing, citizen science or volunteered geographic information? The current state of crowdsourced geographic information. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 5(5), 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050055

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 18, 2016
Online Publication Date Apr 27, 2016
Publication Date Apr 27, 2016
Deposit Date Mar 8, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 8, 2017
Journal ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
Electronic ISSN 2220-9964
Publisher MDPI
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 5
Issue 5
Article Number 55
Pages 55
DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050055
Keywords crowdsourcing; volunteered geographic information; citizen science; mapping
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/783565
Publisher URL http://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/5/5/55
Contract Date Mar 8, 2017

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