# Collaborative mapping

Collaborative mapping is a collaborative effort to create maps by contributing map elements to a joint geographic information system. Collaborative mapping can be used for:
* Damage assessment
* Public transport maps,
* Disaster logistics,
* Epidemiological risk assessment,

## Contributors

The "individuals" that contribute collaboratively to the mapping results can be:
* Humans (e.g. Humanitarian Open StreetMap,
* Animals (e.g. tracked birds to create map for migratory routes),
* Autonomous unmaned vehicle mapping, collaborative (e.g. underwater vehicles)
* Multi institutional data import in a data sink - collaborative institutional support (e.g. donation of validated data to OpenStreetMap)

## Open Community Approach

Application of the Open Community Approach to collaborative mapping leads to maps release as open geo data products available for the community and uses open source and open content to create the mapping product. In this context open collaboratie mapping is as special implementation of the open community approach. The term “open” for an open collaborative mapping refers to the opportunity for anyone to join and contribute to the collaborative effort, i.e. produce and use the mapping product under free licence. The area and collected spatial data are determined collaboratively by members of the community. The geographic spatial environment can be considered as complex adaptive system, so the resulting map (“product”) is made available under a free license, so that other communities can adapt and build on them according to the dynamic changes of our environment.

## Mapping Products

* Routing Networks - e.g. bus network showing connections but not necessarily as a kind of projection from the earth surface
* 2D Maps - classical maps as printout of digital maps like w:OpenStreetMap
* 3D Maps that including the alteration and even surface texture (see Regard3D)
* Murmurations provides a collaborative mapping framework which leverages the collective effort of multiple mappers to produce customisable maps and directories from decentralised, interoperable Profiles.

## Application of Mapping Products

Map can be used:
* for navigation and routing,
* Digital 3D-Model,
* Decision support to allocate resource and for risk assessment
An open collaborative mapping approach prefers to use open scientific, educational and technological resources to accomplish the mapping results pubished under an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons for the community.

## Learning tasks

* (COVID-19) Explore the concept of collaborative mapping in the context of the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19. How can you apply the Open Community Approach to collaborative mapping. Which part should be in the responsibilty of Centers of Disease Control or Public Health Agencies and which are contribution, the population can do. What is the risk mitigation benefits for the population.
* (Humanitarian Open Street Map Team) Explore the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team as a platform, enabling spatial tasks (i.e., tasks related to a location or area) assigned to and performed by human workers for a humanitarian purpose. In this learning task, you are introduced to existing projects for spatial crowdsourcing. Spatial crowd sourcing in the humanitarian context could be the map of a bus network. Check out other project for risk mitigation of Humanitarian Open Street Map team.
* (Markers on a Map) Explore the OpenSource HTML5 Tool to create markers on a map - Markers4Map and create a mapping task. (see example map with two markers - click on marker for further sample information).
* (Collaborative definition of mapping activities) Explore how Humanitarian Open Street Map or Missing Maps defines the goals of an collaborative mapping activities.
* (Swarm Intelligence) Explain similarities and differences between collaborative mapping and swarm intelligence.
* (Open Community Approach) Consider a community with limited resources. How would you applied the Open Community Approach to accomplish community goals with collaborative mapping (access to resources, map the risk, map the demand of ...).
* (Example community tasks) Assume you have class with students that want to learn about colloborative mapping. The task for a community of students is to create a map with all the places where the participants live (e.g. this example was taken from a summerschool)
** Start with the Icon Symbolizer in OpenLayers and put the icon on the map, where a single participant lives.
** Create a JSON database with a marker for every student on the map and assign her/his activities to Sustainable Development Goals. For assignment of multiple SDGs to a geolocation use the webbased OpenSource tool Mapper4SDG - see Mapper4SDG Example
* (Mapping Health Care Facilities) Explore the design principles of https://healthsites.io/ and analyse how collaborative principles are applied. Especially look on quality assurance of geodata.
* (Advanced learners) Organize a mapathon to engage a community in mapping activities all focusing on the same area of the world (see Missing Maps - Mapathon).
* (Blender and GIS) Check Video about Blender and GIS and explain how collaborative mapping and 3D Modelling can be combined to create Real World Lab scenario.
* (Open Data) Explain the role of Open Data for collaborative mapping and using the data as common good for a common good.

## Videos

* HOT Community Webinar: Mobile Data Collection Best Practices and Tools by Dan Joseph - GIS Officer Red Cross (2018)
* Real-time Ground based and Areal Collaborative Mapping - Youtube-Video by Ji Zhang (2017)

## Tools

* Open Street Map editors
* Humanitarian Open Streetmap: Satellite images processed risk and response maps can be huge files. In remote areas network connectivity may be not available or with a very small bandwidth. A generator and and a mesh network (no Internet connectivity necessary) is sufficient to serve the disaster response team or the server can be used in conjunction provision of data and as aggregator of collaborative mapping data collected with mobile devices (see an example from HOT - Humanitarian Open Street Map Team - 2018. Learn about combining this mesh infrastructure with Serval Project approach http://www.servalproject.org/ and Open Data Kit).
* Markers4Map - OpenSource GitHub Tool to create an URL that encodes the geolocation of markers with their pop-ups for OpenStreetMap in OpenLayers
* OpenLayers Display Markers - OpenSource GitHub Tool takes a JSON file as input via URL to display geo-encoded markers with pop-ups for OpenStreetMap Maps in OpenLayers