Published on GeoInt MOOC (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geointmooc)

Home > Lessons > Lesson 3 > L3.11: Discussion

L3.11: Discussion

Skeptical of Crowdsourced Data

For this week's discussion I want to focus on Crowdsourced Geospatial Data (CGD). Here are a few prompts for this week's discussion:

  • Read the following quotation:
I am always skeptical of crowdsourced data or, indeed, any data. As a geographer and remote sensor whose focus is enumerating displaced populations, I have to be. Skepticism is part of my job. All data contain error, so best to acknowledge it and decide what that error means. There is still a lot of uncertainty around these types of volunteered geographic information [1]; specifically questions over the positional accuracy, precision, and validity of these data among a wide variety of other issues [2]. These quantitative issues are important because the general assumption is that these data will be operationalized somehow and it is, therefore, [3] imperative that they add value to already confusing situations if this enterprise is to be taken seriously in an operational sense [4]. The good news is that research so far show that these “asserted” data are not – a priori – necessarily any worse than “authoritative” data and can be quite good due to the greater number of individuals to correct error [5].
Source: http://blog.standbytaskforce.com/tag/tomnod/ [6].
  • Based on the above quote and your experience of using Tomnod to track the damage from the September 15, 2014, Boles Fire near Weed, California, discuss the following:
    • What impact do you think CGD will have on the future of GEOINT?
    • Is being skeptical of CGD different than being skeptical of other data?

Head over to the dedicated discussion forum [7] to talk about these issues.

Forum link resolves to Coursera


Source URL: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geointmooc/node/2018

Links
[1] http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/1208/goodchild-talks.html
[2] http://www.springerlink.com/content/2414838775l810tr/
[3] http://mobileactive.org/how-useful-humanitarian-crowdsourcing
[4] http://www.crowdsourcing.org/document/if-all-you-have-is-a-hammer---how-useful-is-humanitarian-crowdsourcing/3533
[5] http://povesham.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/how-many-volunteers-does-it-take-to-map-an-area-well-the-validity-of-linus-law-to-volunteered-geographic-information/
[6] http://blog.standbytaskforce.com/tag/tomnod/
[7] https://class.coursera.org/geoint-001/forum