[Talk-us] seeking advice on running a mapping party

[Hillsman, Edward]

I sent the following request to Richard Weait offline, and he replied, with a request that I post this to one of the OSM listservs for broader discussion.

Hi Richard,

As I recall, you've offered advice and encouragement for mapping parties, so I'm seeking advice on running one. This is being organized by several people, none of whom has run one before. I probably will be the only person who has attended a mapping party, some 2.5 years ago, run in a different format than we will be able to do here.

We have a date and time (Saturday, Oct. 29, noon-4), on the University of South Florida campus (exact location being chosen, but probably at the student center, which has a food court and abundant wi-fi capacity).  The campus is large (2km x 3km) and fairly-well mapped (http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=28.06173&lon=-82.41359&zoom=16&layers=B000FTF).  The off-campus areas are not particularly bicycle- or pedestrian-friendly and have been mapped opportunistically, not systematically. During the past week, Potlatch2 has been displaying newer Bing imagery than was available when the area was mapped, so we now have imagery of some recent features that previously had been mapped solely by GPS. In the campus area, these include a rebuilt 'complete street'; a number of new apartment complexes (some, unfortunately, gated which restricts access, and some have demolished prior buildings and roads); random additions of sidewalks; and new buildings/parking lots/sidewalks on campus and off). I intend to compile a list of things in the area that I know need to be mapped or (now that better imagery is available) corrected, just as a list of possible small projects for the afternoon.

About 15 people who are taking a GPS class in the geography department will attend to serve as mentors and buddies for people who do not have GPS devices. Class members may use the party as an opportunity to begin their required term projects for the class; it was this that led to the time and date for the party. We will encourage people who want to use GPS but do not have a device to either buddy up with someone in the class, or use smart-phone apps (although I don't think any of the organizers has much direct experience with these for OSM). The instructor and his teaching assistant will be able to provide some support with translating data into GPX from other formats.

In addition to members of the GPS class, we expect unknown numbers from the university bicycle club. A couple of members have done some mapping into OSM, mainly of speed limits (http://www.itoworld.com/product/data/ito_map/main?view=5&bbox=-9180542.18673296,3248621.5447371285,-9163877.00364404,3260246.8523668717&layers=&base_style=&clear_map_history=true) and point-of-interest. We expect similarly unknown numbers from the new geography club. A few of their members know about OSM but I don't know how many have any experience. In addition, during the two weeks preceding the party, I will be making presentations to 3-4 citizen advisory committees for our areas metropolitan planning organization, talking about a proposal to develop a multimodal trip planner for the region that will use bike/ped/wheelchair data from OSM. I will mention the mapping party and anticipate a small handful of people may attend from these briefings. Finally, we have downloaded the OSM data for the county and compiled a list of mappers from it, and I am contacting them via the OSM mail system, so far with almost no response (I'm starting with the most recent and most frequent mappers and working down the list toward those whose most recent edits are older). Students in the two student organizations also will be working their social communications channels, and we will do a press release. We have the party on an OSM wiki page and on a Meetup site, both of which we will develop more as soon as we have the meeting place confirmed.

The question is, how best to organize the time and run this? My own goal for this is to interest as many people as possible in working with OSM. I'm less concerned with what and how much gets mapped that day, and more about leaving people wanting to do more. So, what should we say at the beginning and do at the end to encourage this result? I don't teach, and although I'm told that I present material well, I don't have a knack for motivating people or organizing meetings. So, I would welcome your suggestions.

Edward L. Hillsman, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
Center for Urban Transportation Research
University of South Florida
4202 Fowler Ave., CUT100
Tampa, FL  33620-5375
813-974-2977 (tel)
813-974-5168 (fax)
hillsman at cutr.usf.edu
http://www.cutr.usf.edu<blocked::http://www.cutr.usf.edu/>


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