Volunteer mappers: Who are they and why do they map?

1. Volunteer mappers: Who are they and why do they map? Nama Budhathoki, PhD Candidate University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign U.S. Geological Survey Volunteered Geographic Information Workshop January12-13, 2010

2. Traditional model of GI production and use Budhathoki et. al (2008)

3. VGI and its implications Budhathoki et. al (2008)

4. Hypothesis • Laypeople, armatures (Goodchild 2007; Miller 2006) • Altruism (Goodchild 2007, Sui 2008) • Others………….

5. Empirical study • What contributory behavior do volunteer mappers demonstrate? • Who are those mappers? • Why do they map?

6. Theoretical framework for VGI motivational study • Unique ethos • Learning • Fun • Instrumentality • Recreation • Meeting self need • Altruism • Recognition • Career • Reciprocity • Community • Monetary • Socio-political • More………... Clary et al. (1998), Clary and Synder (1999); Stebbins (1982), Gould et al. (2008); Wasko and Faraj (2005), Lee et al. (2008), Hertel et al. (2003), Shah (2006), Hippel and Krogh (2003), Nov (2007),

7. Overall picture Registered Users 117,000 Mappers 33452 (29%) Non-mappers 83548 (71%) One-timers 14834 (44%) >100 nodes (46%) >1000 (21%) >10000 (5%) >100000 (0.6%) Source: www.openstreetmap.org http://downloads.cloudmade.com/ (Accessed on April, 2009)

8. Continent level

9. Contributory behavior (Africa)

10. Contributory behavior (Asia)

11. Contributory behavior (Europe)

12. Contributory behavior (North America)

13. Contributory behavior (South America)

14. Who are the mappers: Gender N=426

15. Age

16. Education

17. Occupation

18. Employment

19. Place used for contribution

20. GIS experience

23. Motivations ……………commercial mapping products are constantly failing us up here in rural Quebec. On a number of occasions my husband and I have both wished that we could just upload our own GPS data to fix the existing maps. It's all frustratingly out of date--showing non-existent logging roads as real streets, and not showing major interurban routes. I suspect that in many rural parts of Canada neither government nor industry has any motivation to verify old data. Mapper A

24. Motivations Being an author of books which are using maps, I am not able to pay royalty fees to map companies like google or teleatlas. Mapper B It's a lot of fun, and it's nice to see your work appear 1-2 hours after it's done available to the whole world :) Mapper C …………………..I love to see the area around where I live accurately mapped (and updated in a timely manner). I get enormous satisfactionout of this entire process as well as know that I'm contributing towards a valuable resource that others can use. I also enjoying exploring on my bike new areas that I'm mapping - I've discovered some cool suburban places that I never new existed - often within meters of roads that I drive down regularly. Mapper D I

26. Motivational Arena Outcome Arena Action & Interaction Arena Evaluative Criteria Value Quality Credibility Privacy Copyright Coverage Sustainability Social justice Others........... Others Context of Participation C O N T R I B U T I O N Contributory Mechanism Motivations Personal Structure Intrinsic Social Action Extrinsic Technological Norms/ Rules-in-use VGI Conceptual Framework Budhathoki et. al (Under review)

27. Conclusions • Diverse motivations; Orthodox economics theories alone can not explain it • Investigative, creative , expressive and social instincts • Pleasure of creation • Implications for designing volunteered mapping programs

28. Acknowledgement • OSM community and survey respondents, in particular • Zorica Nedovic-Budic, Chip Bruce, Muki Haklay, Lew Hopkins, and Caroline Haythornthwaite

29. More :http://budhathoki.wordpress.com nbudhat2@illinois.eduThanks for listening!