crowdsourcing and crowdfeeding
TRANSCRIPT
CROWDSOURCING AND CROWDFEEDING
TOOLS AND TIPS FOR PARTECIPATORY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Anahi Ayala [email protected]
World Bank ZambiaPPCR Mission – August 2010
CROWDSOURCING AND CROWDFEEDING
CROWDSOURCING: use the crowd to collect information. The act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call for action. Jeff Howe coined the term in June 2006 explaining that because technological advances have allowed for cheap consumer electronics, the gap between professionals and amateurs has been diminished.
CROWDFEEDING: the need for the crowd to share information with the crowd, ie, not top-down, or bottom-up, but information from the crowd, for the crowd; horizontal communication. The act of sharing information out to a large group of people or community, through an open sharing system. In the same time for the international community it means to share all available information with all stakeholders to allow better decision to be taken and better actions to be implemented.
Advantages of using crowdsourcing
Information during a crisis or for early warning systems is as important as food and water
Affected communities know what is going on on the ground in real time
The ability to collect information is limited by the availability of sources of information: more sources, more information
Affected population get engaged in the process because they have an interest in the outcome
Crowdsourcing is relatively cheaper than the use of selected monitoring teams
Crowdsourcing allow for triangulation of information permitting verification and accountability
Typologies of crowdsourcing methods
Unbounded crowd-sourcing: a large group of people is reporting. This system allows for an unlimited number of information to come in, but lack in reliability of information.
Bounded crowd-sourcing: the reporting is done by a specific group. This system allows for verified information to come in but is subjected to the limitation of the limited source.
Combined bounded and unbounded crowd-sourcing: information are collected by a specific group of people, but also by the crowd. Reliable sources and unreliable sources are combines. This system allows for:
I. increase in overall reportingII. Increase in the ability to validate reports from
unknown sources
: CROWDSOURCING, MAPPING
Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, began as a one-off deployment for mapping reports of election violence after the December 2007 Kenyan elections. Ushahidi is a crowdsourcing mapping system that people to report into the platform by web submission, SMS, Twitter or e-mail. The Ushahidi platform is right now being used in more than 30 countries and 60 projects, from electoral monitoring in Burundi to violence in Congo to Early Warning system in the Rift Valley.
AND CROWDFEEDING TOOL
What is Ushahidi?
Platform Methodology
What is Ushahidi?
Platform
Methodology
What you can do with
Visualization of data on a map
Multiple layersCrowdfeeding
Visualizing data on an interactive map
Multiple layers
The categoriesThe map layersThe static layers
1st layer: the categories
2nd Layer: The map layers
3rd Layer: The static layers
Two typologies of static layers
Points (ex. Fixed points like wells, dams, irrigation systems)
Areas (ex.Agro-ecological regions, risk maps, crop suitability)
Crowdfeeding
OPENSTREET MAP: CROWDSOURCED MAPPING
OpenStreet Map (OSM) was founded in July 2004 by Steve Coast. OpenStreet Map data is published under an open content license, with the intention of promoting free use and re-distribution of the data (both commercial and non-commercial). The Map is entirely built by volunteers who can be expert mappers or not. In April 2006, a foundation was established to encourage the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data and provide geospatial data for anybody to use and share.
Advantages of using OSM
Open data available for everybody
Easy to edit and share even for people with no GPS skills
On line active community
Map data under an open content license
Free editing and sharing
On Line Community
OpenAction develop tools to help change-makers tell a more engaging story of impact to a larger audience. Using smart technology and open data standards, the organization brings greater connectivity to the social impact space by creating something called aggregator of maps.
What
Aggregator of mapWho does what and
whereOpen Data and network
visualization
can do
Aggregator of Maps
Who does what where
Open Data and network visualization
MAP KIBERA
Map Kibera was developed in response to the lack of available map data and other public, open, and shared information about one of the world's largest slums: Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya. The project started with the simple creation of a map using the open source free software OpenStreet Map and the Ushahidi platform, to become a project involving now media, health organizations, GBV working groups and grassroots organizations.
Kibera 500,000 people(?), 2.5 km2 was a blank spot on the map
1st STEP: Training the mappers
2nd STEP: the base map
What was mapped? roads and paths and
rail water points pit latrines / sewer medical facilities schools churches/mosques businesses community
organizations administrative units
3rd STEP: Voices of Kibera
Develop Entities and Skills: Kibera Mappers, Kibera News Network (video journalism), SMS Reporting
Deeply Explore Themes: Health, Education, Water/Sanitation and Safety with detailed mapping and reporting
Set up a short code 3002, “Kibera”
www.voiceofkibera.org
The integration with the Ushahidi Platform
Community website for sharing info relevant to Kibera residents News, videos, and SMSReports are mapped
Map Kibera Results:
A group of engaged and skilled citizens, mappers, and journalists
Linkages between Nairobi tech scene and slumdwellers
Platforms and mediums to share the information locally and globally (printed maps, SMS reporting, USHAHIDI and new media creation).
Slowly building movement for shared and open information among NGOs and CBOs
Next Steps
Register mapping group locally Expand to other communities in and
around Kenya – including the other slums in Nairobi
Taking the model to Haiti and elsewhere via GroundTruth
Materials and curriculum, thorough documentation and training others
Maps for Data: your surveys for our printout
Lessons Learned from MapKibera
Community Mapping can be a system to create community awareness and support social networks
Communication management in risk environment needs to incorporate vulnerable population
Early warning systems are effective when they are based on shared information and open data
Gatekeepers to information and data can often be bypassed or ignored completely, allowing for a new parallel information system to be created and used by marginalized citizens.
HOW TO USE CROWDSOURCING AND WHAT TO BE
AWARE OF
CROWDSOURCING IS NOT PERFECT AND IT IS NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY
CROWDSOURCING AND CROWDFEEDING NEED TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION
IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO START ON A SMALL SCALE AND THEN SCALE UP THAN THE CONTRARY
NEVER CHOOSE A TOOL AND THEN DECIDE WHAT TO USE IT FOR
RISK AND PROBLEMES OF CROWDSOURCING SYSTEMS
VERIFICATION
STRUCTURE
IMPACT
VERIFICATION
PROBLEM: when you do crowdsourcing you don’t know who is the source of your information. The risk is to receive and use false or bias information that can affect your work and credibility.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Verification can be crowdsourced too (ex.
OpenStreet Map and Ushahidi) New systems to triangulate information and
create reliability scores (ex. Swift River) Bound and Unbound crowdsourcing is for
now the best solution (ex. Uchaguzi)
STRUCTURE
PROBLEM: people thinks that a good tool is enough to make a good project. This is not the case: a tool is only a tool, a good project is much more than this.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Planning and strategy design need
to be always the first step of a project
Crowdsourcing is not immune to its own principle: the best crowdsourcing project is the one managed by the involved population
Sustainability and integration with local systems need to be always taken into consideration
IMPACT
Information is power, so if you share information you are sharing power. Crowdsourcing projects cannot be detached by their political implications.
Crowdsourcing projects are bi-directional projects: the crowd will always modify and affect the project as much as the project will modify and affect the crowd.
Crowdsourcing projects to be effective need to be adapted to the existing flow of information and information management systems existing in the environment where they are implemented.
