The objective of this work is to build a Volunteered Geographic Information System (VGIS) using a... more The objective of this work is to build a Volunteered Geographic Information System (VGIS) using a methodological design process. The VGIS design focuses on coordinating its three main components—project (organization), participants (community), and technological infrastructure—by aligning the project goal, crowdsourcing strategy and participation environment, the drivers and mechanisms that motivates volunteers, and the technological and data management tools that facilitate engaged participation. Following this process helped to design a solution based on the project’s information requirements to handle a road data tagging task, while offering an experience that meets the interests and needs of potential participants.
2014 Eighth International Conference on Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT Geospatial mobile applications interact with local and remote hardware to connect variou... more ABSTRACT Geospatial mobile applications interact with local and remote hardware to connect various data sources. These applications are currently evolving to include crowdsourcing functionalities, for citizen participation. In this paper we propose the identification, collection and information exchange of smart objects their geographic information, facilitating connectivity and communication between citizens and local organizations, and building interoperable services with data from sensors, smart physical objects and social media. We propose to identify spatial patterns, report object locations to identify problems and improve maintenance strategies of a city. As a validation of this approach, we develop a mobile mapping and data hub platform to visualize, monitor, and assist urban maintenance planning that enables better interaction between citizens of Smart Cities.
Volunteered geographic information (VGI) has been studied extensively within various contexts, ho... more Volunteered geographic information (VGI) has been studied extensively within various contexts, however, generally focusing on isolated aspects of data. Therefore, we still need to advance the structured knowledge of the mechanisms that affect and support its creation. This article aims to contribute to the integrated study of VGI systems (VGIS) in order to enhance design processes that lead to a more systematic and efficient VGI management. We define VGIS, their main components, and general architectures. Then, we use the service blueprinting technique to conduct the case study of several systems, identifying system actions to find the processes and technologies forming the different functional components of VGIS: elements of the technological infrastructure that implement diverse processes to facilitate participation and data management. Integrated in the data collection component, we also propose a typology of crowdsourcing tasks that—coupled with the functional components—establishes a foundation for VGIS research and design. We characterize these components, arguing that they are necessary in the development of VGIS, however, there is still a need for a more detailed study of the flow of processes and subprocesses and how they work under the criteria of different types of projects to continue facilitating their design.
This work addresses motivation for participating in volunteered geographic information systems (V... more This work addresses motivation for participating in volunteered geographic information systems (VGIS), which enable a crowdsourcing process to create information-driven value. VGIS, implemented by executing a project and its crowdsourcing strategy, are driven by online networked community participation enabled by a technological infrastructure. However, without community engagement, crowdsourcing, the core process of a VGIS, fails to create value and its main advantage becomes one of its biggest challenges. To address this problem, we present a conceptual framework to assist in designing engagement strategies to motivate and facilitate goal-oriented participation. To this end, we examine the relation between Maslow’s human needs and VGI, its different goals, and current studies on motivation. We analyze intrinsic and internalized motivation, focusing on the needs outlined in self-determination theory. Finally, we apply Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation in relation to VGI. As a result, the proposed framework consists of three design tools: core drivers, participant types to whom efforts to motivate should be aligned with the project rationale, and an engagement process consisting of three main actions: Enroll, Grow and Retain. With this framework, future VGIS developments can have a structured approach that guides participation and the design of engagement strategies.
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2016
This article sets forth the early phases of a methodological proposal for designing and developin... more This article sets forth the early phases of a methodological proposal for designing and developing Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) initiatives based on a system perspective analysis in which the components depend and interact dynamically among each other. First, it focuses on those characteristics of VGI projects that present different goals and modes of organization, while using a crowdsourcing strategy to manage participants and contributions. Next, a tool is developed in order to design the central crowdsourced processing unit that is best suited for a specific project definition, associating it with a trend towards crowd-based or community-driven approaches. The design is structured around the characterization of different ways of participating, and the task cognitive demand of working on geo-information management, spatial problem solving and ideation, or knowledge acquisition. Then, the crowdsourcing process design helps to identify what kind of participants are needed and outline subsequent engagement strategies. This is based on an analysis of differences among volunteers' participatory behaviors and the associated set of factors motivating them to contribute, whether on a crowd or community-sourced basis. From a VGI system perspective, this paper presents a set of guidelines and methodological steps in order to align project goals, processes and volunteers and thus successfully attract participation. This methodology helps establish the initial requirements for a VGI system, and, in its current state, it mainly focuses on two components of the system: project and participants.
Geocoding process of unstructured or poor quality location addresses requires human supervision i... more Geocoding process of unstructured or poor quality location addresses requires human supervision in order to obtain valuable data. Current availability of geocoding web-service technologies, enabling the deployment of collaborative applications and the existence of volunteering communities, has motivated the proposal of a platform to generate geocoding collaborative tasks relying on the available solutions in order to get accurate results in short-term. In this work we present the design and development of a tool that facilitates to volunteers the geocoding process. We implement some strategies to give the volunteers elaborated information about web-service geocoding results and the capacity to propose other positions different than those suggested. All the information is registered in a database model to enable later analysis or accuracy studies.
The objective of this work is to build a Volunteered Geographic Information System (VGIS) using a... more The objective of this work is to build a Volunteered Geographic Information System (VGIS) using a methodological design process. The VGIS design focuses on coordinating its three main components—project (organization), participants (community), and technological infrastructure—by aligning the project goal, crowdsourcing strategy and participation environment, the drivers and mechanisms that motivates volunteers, and the technological and data management tools that facilitate engaged participation. Following this process helped to design a solution based on the project’s information requirements to handle a road data tagging task, while offering an experience that meets the interests and needs of potential participants.
2014 Eighth International Conference on Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT Geospatial mobile applications interact with local and remote hardware to connect variou... more ABSTRACT Geospatial mobile applications interact with local and remote hardware to connect various data sources. These applications are currently evolving to include crowdsourcing functionalities, for citizen participation. In this paper we propose the identification, collection and information exchange of smart objects their geographic information, facilitating connectivity and communication between citizens and local organizations, and building interoperable services with data from sensors, smart physical objects and social media. We propose to identify spatial patterns, report object locations to identify problems and improve maintenance strategies of a city. As a validation of this approach, we develop a mobile mapping and data hub platform to visualize, monitor, and assist urban maintenance planning that enables better interaction between citizens of Smart Cities.
Volunteered geographic information (VGI) has been studied extensively within various contexts, ho... more Volunteered geographic information (VGI) has been studied extensively within various contexts, however, generally focusing on isolated aspects of data. Therefore, we still need to advance the structured knowledge of the mechanisms that affect and support its creation. This article aims to contribute to the integrated study of VGI systems (VGIS) in order to enhance design processes that lead to a more systematic and efficient VGI management. We define VGIS, their main components, and general architectures. Then, we use the service blueprinting technique to conduct the case study of several systems, identifying system actions to find the processes and technologies forming the different functional components of VGIS: elements of the technological infrastructure that implement diverse processes to facilitate participation and data management. Integrated in the data collection component, we also propose a typology of crowdsourcing tasks that—coupled with the functional components—establishes a foundation for VGIS research and design. We characterize these components, arguing that they are necessary in the development of VGIS, however, there is still a need for a more detailed study of the flow of processes and subprocesses and how they work under the criteria of different types of projects to continue facilitating their design.
This work addresses motivation for participating in volunteered geographic information systems (V... more This work addresses motivation for participating in volunteered geographic information systems (VGIS), which enable a crowdsourcing process to create information-driven value. VGIS, implemented by executing a project and its crowdsourcing strategy, are driven by online networked community participation enabled by a technological infrastructure. However, without community engagement, crowdsourcing, the core process of a VGIS, fails to create value and its main advantage becomes one of its biggest challenges. To address this problem, we present a conceptual framework to assist in designing engagement strategies to motivate and facilitate goal-oriented participation. To this end, we examine the relation between Maslow’s human needs and VGI, its different goals, and current studies on motivation. We analyze intrinsic and internalized motivation, focusing on the needs outlined in self-determination theory. Finally, we apply Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation in relation to VGI. As a result, the proposed framework consists of three design tools: core drivers, participant types to whom efforts to motivate should be aligned with the project rationale, and an engagement process consisting of three main actions: Enroll, Grow and Retain. With this framework, future VGIS developments can have a structured approach that guides participation and the design of engagement strategies.
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2016
This article sets forth the early phases of a methodological proposal for designing and developin... more This article sets forth the early phases of a methodological proposal for designing and developing Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) initiatives based on a system perspective analysis in which the components depend and interact dynamically among each other. First, it focuses on those characteristics of VGI projects that present different goals and modes of organization, while using a crowdsourcing strategy to manage participants and contributions. Next, a tool is developed in order to design the central crowdsourced processing unit that is best suited for a specific project definition, associating it with a trend towards crowd-based or community-driven approaches. The design is structured around the characterization of different ways of participating, and the task cognitive demand of working on geo-information management, spatial problem solving and ideation, or knowledge acquisition. Then, the crowdsourcing process design helps to identify what kind of participants are needed and outline subsequent engagement strategies. This is based on an analysis of differences among volunteers' participatory behaviors and the associated set of factors motivating them to contribute, whether on a crowd or community-sourced basis. From a VGI system perspective, this paper presents a set of guidelines and methodological steps in order to align project goals, processes and volunteers and thus successfully attract participation. This methodology helps establish the initial requirements for a VGI system, and, in its current state, it mainly focuses on two components of the system: project and participants.
Geocoding process of unstructured or poor quality location addresses requires human supervision i... more Geocoding process of unstructured or poor quality location addresses requires human supervision in order to obtain valuable data. Current availability of geocoding web-service technologies, enabling the deployment of collaborative applications and the existence of volunteering communities, has motivated the proposal of a platform to generate geocoding collaborative tasks relying on the available solutions in order to get accurate results in short-term. In this work we present the design and development of a tool that facilitates to volunteers the geocoding process. We implement some strategies to give the volunteers elaborated information about web-service geocoding results and the capacity to propose other positions different than those suggested. All the information is registered in a database model to enable later analysis or accuracy studies.
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Papers by José Pablo Gómez-Barrón