[OSM-Science] Special Issue on "Advances in Applications of Volunteered Geographic Information" in the journal Remote Sensing

[f.o.ostermann at utwente.nl]

Hi all,
it's great to have activity on the science mailing list! There has been a lot of discussion on the issue in academic literature, but it's clear that we can't expect non-academics to follow it because of time (I hardly manage) and also pay walls (not enough open access yet). But that is exactly what the OSM science mailing list is good for, isn't it?

I've posted the below also as comment to the blog post http://blog.imagico.de/science-and-openstreetmap-and-why-not-call-it-vgi/

Cheers,

Frank Ostermann

So I teach a lot on VGI and OSM, and I tell my students that OSM is a prime example of VGI. Why? Because it is definitely volunteered (someone made an active decision to add something to the database, Christoph writes that himself in the third bullet point), it is geographic (about data points with a geographic location), and it is also information (because assigning tags etc. is an act involving semantics and other sources of prior information, so it is an interpretation, a cognitive process, more than simple perception and recording of a stimulus).
I disagree with most of Christoph's arguments from the blog post (and by extension also Levente where he agrees with those). First, using terms like VGI is not an attempt at generalization (removing details), but at categorization (grouping similar items), to facilitate meaningful discussion. Unfortunately, people (including researchers) use terms indiscriminately and inflationary to push their work so that it turns up in searches and gets cited more often. That is the only part where I agree with Christoph, that often buzzwords are used whether they fit or not, because they are, well, buzzwords. We could do away with categories and discuss every project idiographically, but since (natural) science is about finding similarities and differences, what's the point? Second, on who can be a volunteer, this is one of the few things where literature seems to agree, so I don't understand why this post introduces artificial ambiguity here. "Voluntarism" is to my knowledge always associated with individual citizens (who can organize in groups or NGOs of course). I have never heard of a satellite image provider (or owner...) to be termed "volunteer". I know that there are bulk uploads from institutional sources, but that was never the intention, nor is it the majority. The next point on "information" I do not understand. Of course OSM is made up of data, but OSM (a map!) is full of semantics, so calling it information definitely makes more sense. Lastly, why associate or equal volunteered information with private information? If something is out there in the world but not on OSM, then of course I can volunteer to bring it to OSM, and it is verifiable by others. VGI is not about things only I can know. I really do not understand where this notion of information as property (in the context of VGI) comes from. I have not seen it being discussed in that context. Lastly, "crowdsourced" implies a hierarchy: There is someone (a person, an organization, a company) who needs something done but doesn't have the resources. So they outsource the task to a crowd. Does that describe OSM? I don't think so. To me it seems the exact opposite of what Christoph tries to argue previously.
So in summary, I think that Christoph has a point in that too many people use terms like VGI without proper thought or to optimize citation metrics. But OSM not being volunteered geographic information? I disagree.

Dr. Frank O. Ostermann<http://www.linkedin.com/in/foost> | Assistant Professor<http://www.itc.nl/resumes/ostermann>
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC)<https://www.utwente.nl/en/itc/> | University of Twente<http://www.utwente.nl/>
PO Box 217 | 7500 AE Enschede | The Netherlands
Office: ITC Building 2-056 | +31 (0)53 - 487 4492 | f.o.ostermann at utwente.nl<mailto:f.o.ostermann at utwente.nl>

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