TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards understanding the impact of Mapathons - Reflecting on youthmappers experiences
AU - Coetzee, Serena
AU - Minghini, Marco
AU - Solis, Patricia
AU - Rautenbach, Victoria
AU - Green, Cameron
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank all the students and volunteers who have contributed to the mapathons at the three universities described in the paper. Also, authors would like to acknowledge the YouthMappers network, through which they had the chance to be connected and write this paper. The United States Agency for International Development supports the YouthMappers program through a grant from the USAID GeoCenter under Award #AID-OAA-G-15-00007. Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the policies and viewpoints of the agency or its employees.
Publisher Copyright:
© Authors 2018.
PY - 2018/7/11
Y1 - 2018/7/11
N2 - YouthMappers is a global network of student chapters actively engaged in collaborative mapping efforts, such as OpenStreetMap mapathons. Many questions have been raised about the impact of mapathons on open map data and on the participating mappers. For example, how can the social gathering and event format encourage productivity and quality, while also contributing to community building? Because YouthMappers chapters regularly host mapathons, there are frequent opportunities to investigate the impact of mapathons. In this paper, three universities involved in the YouthMappers network, located in Europe, North America and Africa, describe how mapathons are conducted at their respective universities. Incorporating mapathons into the curriculum encourages students to contribute much-needed open geospatial data for humanitarian projects. At the same time, students get practical experience in data capturing with open source tools and awareness is raised of humanitarian challenges in other parts of the world, thus nurturing socially engaged citizens for the future. The experiences at the three universities are diverse and richly contextual to the specific character of the campus and its students. These differences underscore the challenge of a common means to formally assess the impact of such events in general. Based on this exploratory research, three themes for assessing the impact of mapathons are proposed: The volume and quality of open geographic data produced during mapathons; the social and personal growth of the students attending the mapathons; and the changes in university programs and curricula introduced as a result of the mapathons.
AB - YouthMappers is a global network of student chapters actively engaged in collaborative mapping efforts, such as OpenStreetMap mapathons. Many questions have been raised about the impact of mapathons on open map data and on the participating mappers. For example, how can the social gathering and event format encourage productivity and quality, while also contributing to community building? Because YouthMappers chapters regularly host mapathons, there are frequent opportunities to investigate the impact of mapathons. In this paper, three universities involved in the YouthMappers network, located in Europe, North America and Africa, describe how mapathons are conducted at their respective universities. Incorporating mapathons into the curriculum encourages students to contribute much-needed open geospatial data for humanitarian projects. At the same time, students get practical experience in data capturing with open source tools and awareness is raised of humanitarian challenges in other parts of the world, thus nurturing socially engaged citizens for the future. The experiences at the three universities are diverse and richly contextual to the specific character of the campus and its students. These differences underscore the challenge of a common means to formally assess the impact of such events in general. Based on this exploratory research, three themes for assessing the impact of mapathons are proposed: The volume and quality of open geographic data produced during mapathons; the social and personal growth of the students attending the mapathons; and the changes in university programs and curricula introduced as a result of the mapathons.
KW - Collaborative mapping
KW - Mapathon
KW - Open geospatial data
KW - OpenStreetMap
KW - Volunteer engagement
KW - YouthMappers
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85051463144&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W8-35-2018
DO - 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W8-35-2018
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85051463144
SN - 1682-1750
VL - 42
SP - 35
EP - 42
JO - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences - ISPRS Archives
JF - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences - ISPRS Archives
IS - 4W8
T2 - 2018 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Conference, FOSS4G 2018
Y2 - 29 August 2018 through 31 August 2018
ER -