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<th align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="baseline">Sujet : </th>
<td>[HOT] Report on the first week of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap
Team work Haiti (warning: long)</td>
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<th align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="baseline">Date : </th>
<td>Sun, 28 Mar 2010 21:08:11 -0700</td>
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<td>Robert Soden <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:robert.soden@gmail.com"><robert.soden@gmail.com></a></td>
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<th align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="baseline">Pour : </th>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:hot@openstreetmap.org">hot@openstreetmap.org</a></td>
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<br>
<br>
I apologize in advance for the length of this, but it's important to us
that we keep everyone informed about the work we are doing here to
represent the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and I've yet to process
all that's we've been doing into something more digestible.<br>
<br>
In short, things are going very well, primarily because of the effort
of the community over the past two months in support of the response.<br>
<br>
It's hard to believe we've been here for only a week. We arrived last
Sunday night and were pulled into planning meetings with IOM and KPK
(Ushahidi-Haiti) within a few hours of landing in Port au Prince. The
rest of the week has followed a similar course. We're camping on
logbase – where there's essentially nothing to do but work – so we've
been doing 14-16 hours on most days since arriving - busy with the
presentations, meetings, phone calls, emails, and training preparations.<br>
<br>
In many ways, our outreach efforts been far easier than we anticipated.
The GIS teams here have all heard of OSM, and most of them are using
the data already in some fashion. Many of the people we've talked to
over the last week have expressed sincere gratitude to the community
for all of its hard work and been more than willing to take time out of
their days to talk to us, connect us to the right people, and
participate in our training sessions. It's not because they're kind
people (though they are). The GIS and Information Officers on logbase
have a real incentive to work with us because OSM has become such a key
dataset here. So they want to learn how to use the data more
effectively, give us feedback on how we can improve the tools available
to them, and strategize with us about to best fit OSM into their
workflows.<br>
<br>
Backing up a bit, it's worth restating the goals of the mission so I
can talk about how we're doing on each front. We're here, funded my
ECHO and facilitated by MapAction, to help make sure OSM continues to
stay a relevant datasource and tool in the ongoing response to the
Haiti quake and as the process moves into the recovery and development
phases. We're attempting to do this in three ways:<br>
<br>
* Establishing connections with and training representatives from the
UN Cluster system (which includes international NGOs), the Haitian
government, and Haitian civil society on the use of OSM data and
strategies for data collection using the OSM toolset.<br>
* Making sure the OSM data for Haiti continues to be the best available
of its kind. This includes identifying key datasets for import and
establishing mechanisms whereby relevant data collected by
organizations working here can flow into the OSM database.<br>
* Better identifying needs of this community and assessing ways in
which OSM tools can be improved to meet the particular demands of this
context.<br>
<br>
So far, most of our efforts have concentrated on the first point. We've
spent a lot of time this first week just getting to know the GIS teams
from OCHA, IOM, WFP, MINUSTAH, WHO, and UNICEF. We're also working
closely with CNIGS (the Haitian government's geo-spatial agency). After
all of these meetings and presentations, I feel we have a workable
understanding of a complicated and rapidly-changing landscape.<br>
<br>
We conducted our first training yesterday afternoon staff from OCHA,
WASH cluster, UNICEF, MapAction, and USAID. The training lasted a few
hours and we worked on basic use of GPS, Walking Papers, and JOSM for
field-surveying. There were a few hiccups caused by a faulty USB cable,
unpredictable internet, and about twice as many participants as we
anticipated. But in general, it was great to give these folks, some of
whom are active consumers of OSM data, a better understanding of how to
contribute to the dataset and more insight into how it all works.<br>
We'll follow up this training with several more like it on Tuesday and
Wednesday mornings for staff of CNIGS, WFP, IOM, UNICEF, and MINUSTAH.
Wednesday afternoon we'll be working primarily with CNIGS and IOM on
preparing a surveying trip to Jacmel, an earthquake hit and flood-prone
city outside of Port au Prince. The trip will last two days – Thursday
and Friday - and will aim to gather updated information on IDP camps,
road names and conditions, and locations of schools and medical
clinics. We'll be using OSM as a repo for the data collected and our
hope is that after a few training sessions this week, CNIGS will be
able to lead the surveying efforts, with Nicolas and I there primarily
to observe and support as necessary, and we'll likely have support from
WFP and OCHA. <br>
<br>
Camping on logbase, though not exactly cushy, has given us solid access
to the various UN groups and we've had success so far collaborating
with CNIGS. But we've been somewhat restricted in our movements outside
the camp and haven't had great success interfacing with local NGOs. We
have been lucky to connect with Sabina and Jaro of KPK. With their
assistance and the support of their colleagues at INURED (<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://inured.org/">http://inured.org/</a>),
we'll get a chance to meet up with community leaders and young people
in Cite Soleil and do some OSM mapping work with them tomorrow. We've
also been in touch with the local staff of Trees for the Future (who
helped us do a test-run of our training last Friday), and a few other
groups. Broadening our network of friends and allies within civil
society here will be a critical part of the remaining time we have here.<br>
<br>
On the data side, we're looking at an predictably complex situation.
There's two general things we're aiming to accomplish. The first is to
come up with a list of the most accurate set of baseline datasets we
can, in order to import these as necessary to ensure OSM has the best
data available. At the moment, no actor here has such a list. We're
working with OCHA and CNIGS to facilitate its creation and hope to have
input from in the next few days. Talbot Brooks and some partners from
Delta State University have begun the work of building a 1:25k atlas of
Haiti using these data sources once we can provide a complete list. <br>
<br>
We also want to find ways in which data that is being collected by the
various clusters can be imported or updated in OSM over time. UNICEF
sent out ~100 surveyors on motorcycles last week to collect school
locations, information on medical facilities is constantly being
updated, and there are at least 3 different groups collecting data on
IDP camps. Kate Chapman, Karl Guggisberg, and others have been working
to keep medical facility points current through periodic imports so
we're hoping to be able to establish similar mechanisms for schools and
camps. Part of the issue is divergent data models between surveys and
surveying groups so we've needed to facilitate meetings between
organizations here on how to come up with some basic standards. We did
this with OCHA and IOM last week on camps and were able to quickly
decide upon some baseline attributes that both held in common and are
now in good position to move forward with imports of these, using
Nicolas's efforts around the Humanitarian Data Model as a guide. I'm
hoping we can have similar success with schools, water kiosks, and
health facilities soon.<br>
<br>
As far as better targeting OSM tools to these audiences, we have a ways
to go before we're ready to provide many concrete ideas. I think the
trainings we'll conduct this week and the surveying mission to Jacmel
will provide a lot of insight. But I can highlight one initiative
that's already underway in order to provide an example of the kinds of
things we're thinking about. WFP Logistics is interested in using OSM
road network data and contributing to it as possible. They use a
particular data model, the UNSDIT (authored primarily by Nicolas),
which describes key information that they need to know about streets
and other transport features in order to do their work. What we need
then is a bridge between the OSM data and the UNSDIT data model. We've
already gotten help from Michael Weismen, Andrew Turner, and Jason
Pickering setting up an instance of FME server and Karen Payne and Kate
Chapman have started building an ETL service that will convert OSM data
into something consumable by UNSDIT. There's also some interest in a
similar service for CNIGS. There's a lot more we need to learn here,
but this is one example of the ways in which we can better target OSM
to provide service in this context.<br>
<br>
This coming week we'll be doing either training or data collection
exercises every day. If all goes as planned, we'll be in Cite Soleil on
Monday, doing trainings for cluster and CNIGS staff on logbase Tuesday
and Wednesday, and then to Jacmel for Friday and Saturday for
surveying. In addition to exposing a lot of people to the OSM tools,
we'll also learn a lot about how we as a community can better target
the needs here.<br>
<br>
Apologies again for the length of this, we'll send another update as we
can.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Robert and Nicolas<br>
<br>
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