Crowdsourcing and Crisis Mapping

Prepared by: Kim Stephens–July 2012
Blogs you should read: Ushahidi, iRevolution, Crisismappers,

Crisis Mapping: Ushahidi/Haiti
What is a Crisis Mapper? According to Crisismappers.net they leverage mobile & web-based applications, participatory maps & crowdsourced event data, aerial & satellite imagery, geospatial platforms, advanced visualization, live simulation, and computational & statistical models to power effective early warning for rapid response to complex humanitarian emergencies.

• Howard, Alex. “Social Data and Geospatial mapping join Crisis Response” O’Reilly Radar Blog. Great article describing integration of crowdsourced data collected on the Ushahidi platform into GIS. 27 january 2011. <http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/01/esri-australia-ushahidi.html?utm_medium=twitter>.
• Connell, Christopher. “In Haiti’s Hour of Need, Texting “4636” Became a Lifeline.”  America.gov. 19 Feb. 2010. Accessed Aug. 2010. <http://www.america.gov/st/develop-english/2010/February/20100219131612berehelleK5.066395e-06.html>.
• Esri: “Crowdsourcing and Crisismapping for Public Safety” Video. Recorded July 2011. Last Accessed July 2012. <http://video.arcgis.com/watch/591/crowdsourcing-and-crisis-mapping-for-public-safety>.

• Geospatial Revolution.  “The Geospatial Revolution Project is an integrated public service media and outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact.”  Penn State Public Broadcasting. 2010. Accessed Jan 2011. <http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/episode1/complete>.
• Giridharadas, Anand. “CURRENTS; Taking Stock in the Testimony of the Crowd.” NY Times. 13 March 2010. Accessed Aug. 2010. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B04E1D9103AF930A25750C0A9669D8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2>.
• Heinzelman, Jessica and Carol Waters. “Special Report: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information in Disaster Affected Haiti.” United States Institute of Peace. October 2010. Accessed Oct. 2010. <http://www.usip.org/files/resources/SR252%20-%20Crowdsourcing%20Crisis%20Information%20in%20Disaster-Affected%20Haiti.pdf>.
• ICT4Peace:  “Peacebuilding in the Information Age: Sifting Hype from Reality”  ICT4Peace Foundation. Jan 2011. Accesssed Jan. 2011. <http://ict4peace.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Peacebuilding-in-the-Information-Age-Sifting-Hype-from-Reality.pdf>.
• Johnson, J., Crowley, J. & Erle, S. “Haiti: Crisis Mapping the Earthquake”  2.0 Conference in San Jose, CA. March 30^th-April 1^st, 2010.
• Lewis, W.D. (2010), “Haitian Creole: How to Build and Ship an MT Engine from Scratch in 4 days, 17 hours, & 30 minutes.” 14^th Annual Conference of the European Association of Machine Translation, St. Raphael, France, May 27^th-28^th 2010.
• Liu, S.B., Iacucci, A.A., & Meier, P. (2010). Ushahidi Haiti and Chile: Next Generation Crisis Mapping. American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM), Bulletin, August 2010.
•  Meier, Patrick. “Verifying Crowdsourced Social Media Reports for Live Crisis Mapping: An Introduction to Information Forensics”
  November 29, 2011. Accessed: December 4, 2011. <http://irevolution.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/meier-verifying-crowdsourced-data-case-studies.pdf>.
• Meier, Patrick. “Three Common Misconceptions About Ushahidi.” Dec. 26, 2009. iRevolution. 26 July 2010.  <http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/three-common-misconceptions-about-ushahidi/>.
• Munro, R. (2010). “Crowdsourced translation for emergency response in Haiti: the global collaboration of local knowledge” <http://robertmunro.com/>.
• Raftree, Linda. Ushahidi Community Resource “Preliminary Practical Considerations”. Accessed 6 March, 2011. PDF.”This document will walk you through some things you might want to think about before you start using the platform.” <http://community.ushahidi.com/uploads/documents/c_Ushahidi-Practical_Considerations.pdf>
• Sigal, Ivan. “Media, Information Systems and Communities: Lessons from Haiti by Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities” (CDAC) 2010.
• Sigal, Ivan. “Digital Media in Conflict-Prone Societies” Center for International Media Assistance (a project of the National Endowment for Democracy). 19 Oct. 2009. Accessed Aug. 2010. <http://cima.ned.org/reports/digital-media-in-conflict-prone-societies-2.html>.
• “Ushahidi, About: Introduction and History.” Ushahidi. 2010. Ushahidi.com. 16 July 2010 <http://www.ushahidi.com/about/>.
• Ushahidi Video–Accessed July 2012

• Valuch, J. “What we learned from Haiti and where to go in Pakistan?” Pakreport.org Blog August 2010 < http://pakreport.org/blog/?p=26>.
• Wells, L, Welborn R “From Haiti to Helmand: Using Open Source Information to Enhance Situational Awareness and Operational Effectiveness”. Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP). 2010. Accessed Jan. 2011. <http://star-tides.net/node/745>.

Crowdsourcing and Volunteer Technology Community 
What is Crowdsourcing? According to Crowdsourcing.org “Crowdsourcing has been a popular crisis mapping tool. Used to map a wide range of issues, crowdsourcing makes it easier for a large group of people from all over a region, city, country, etc., to document where problems are occurring and when. This information is used to help respond to problems, provide aid to regions that need it and keep the public up-to-date on issues as they progress.”

• “Apps for Democracy: Guide to Creating Your Own Apps for Democracy.”  2010. Apps for Democracy.org. Accessed July 2010 <http://www.appsfordemocracy.org/guide-to-creating-your-own-apps-for-democracy/>.
• “Code for America.” Code for America.org. 2010. 1 August, 2010 <http://codeforamerica.org/>.
• “Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies.” Report partners: United Nations Foundation, OCHA, Vodafone Foundation, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. March, 2011. Accessed March 2011. <http://issuu.com/unfoundation/docs/disaster_relief20_report>.
• Goodchild, Michael and Alan Glennon. “Crowdsourcing geographic information”: Informaworld (with a fee) 15 April 2010. Accessed Aug. 2010. <http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a921333063>.
• Howe, Jeff. “The Rise of Crowdsourcing.”  Wired Magazine. June, 2006. Conde’ Nast Digital.  31 July 2010 <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html?pg=4&topic=crowds>.
• Libert, Barry and Jon Spector. We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business. New Jersey: Wharton School Publishing. 2008.
• Sharma, Ankit. “Crowdsourcing Critical Success Factor Model:Working Paper 1.” 2010.  Accessed 2 Aug. 2010. < http://irevolution.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/working-paper1.pdf>.
• Shirky, Clay. “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.” NY: Penguin Press, 2010.
• Tapscott, Don and Anthony D. Williams. “Macro-Wikinomics.”  London, England: Penguin Books, 2010.
• Surowiecki, James. “The Wisdom of Crowds.” NY: Anchor Books, 2005.
• World Bank.  “Volunteer Technology Communities: Open Development.” Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery – GFDRR Labs. Accessed December 4, 2011. <http://www.gfdrr.org/gfdrr/sites/gfdrr.org/files/publication/Volunteer%20Technology%20Communities%20-%20Open%20Development.pdf>.

Crisis Mapping, Crisis Informatics and Social Networks:  Books, Articles & Blogs

• Aguiton, Chistophe, et.al “Living Maps: new data, new uses, new problems.” Sociology and Economics of Networks and Services Department, Orange Labs, Paris France. Accessed July 2010. <http://senseable.mit.edu/engagingdata/papers/ED_SI_Living_Maps.pdf>.
• Coyle, Diana and Patrick Meier. “New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflicts: The Role of Social Networks.” June 2010. United Nations Foundation -Vodafone Foundation Partnership. 2009. Accessed Aug. 2010. <“>http://www.vodafone.com/etc/medialib/foundation_imagery/un.Par.72443.File.tmp/Tech_EmergencyTechReport_full.pdf&gt;.
• Currion, P. “Emergency Capacity Building Project – A collaborative effort of the Inter-Agency Working Group on Emergency Capacity, Information and Technology Requirements Initiative, Assessment Report”. Global Response, 2005.
• Fischer, G. (2009). “Cultures of Participation and Social Computing: Rethinking and Reinventing Learning and Education.” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), IEEE Press, Riga, Latvia, 2009.
• Hattotuwa, Sanjana and Daniel Stauffacher. “Cross-fertilisation of UN Common Operational Datasets and Crisismapping.” ICT for Peace Foundation. 14 October, 2010. Accessed Oct. 2010. <http://ict4peace.org/updates/connecting-crisismapping-to-the-united-nations>.
• Hughes, Amanda, et. al. “Site-Seeing in Disaster: An Examination of On-Line Social Convergence.” University of Colorado, Boulder. May, 2008. Accessed Aug. 2010. <http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~palen/Papers/iscram08/OnlineConvergenceISCRAM08.pdf>.
• Liu, Sophia and Jen Ziemke.“From Cultures of Participation to the Rise of Crisis Mapping in a Networked World. In Routledge Handbook of Participatory Cultures, 2012.
• Liu, S.B & Iacucci, A.A. (2010). Crisis Map Mashups in a Participatory Age. American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Bulletin, June 2010, pp. 10-14.
• Meier, P. & Leaning, J. “Applying Technology to Crisis Mapping and Early Warning in Humanitarian Settings.” Crisis Mapping Working Paper, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2009.
• Meier, Patrick. “SwiftRiver | Verifying and Filtering News (FOSS).” Ushahidi Blog. Accessed Aug. 2010. <http://swift.ushahidi.com/>
• Neis, P., Singler, P., Zipf, A.  “Collaborative mapping and Emergency Routing for Disaster Logistics – Case studies from the Haiti earthquake and the UN portal for Afrika.” 2010  In: Car, A., Griesebner, G., Strobl, J. (Eds.): Geospatial Crossroads @ GI_Forum ’10. Proceedings of the Geoinformatics Forum Salzburg.
• “Oil Spill Crisis Map.” 2010.Ushahidi.com. 16 July 2010 <http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/page/index/1>

• O’ Reilly, Tim.  “What is Web 2.0 Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.” O’Reilly.com. Sept. 2005. 31 July 2010 <http://oreilly.com/lpt/a/6228>.
• Palen, L., S. Vieweg, J. Sutton, S.B. Liu & A. Hughes (2007). “Crisis Informatics: Studying Crisis in a Networked World”. Third International Conference on e-Social Science, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 7-9, 2007.
• Palen, Leysia, et. al. “A Vision for Technology-Mediated Support for Public Participation & Assistance in Mass Emergencies & Disasters.” British Informatics Society Ltd., Proceedings of ACM-BCS Visions of Computer Science. 2010. Accessed Sept. 2010. < http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~palen/computingvisionspaper.pdf>.
• “Project EPIC: Empowering the Public with Information in Crisis.” University of Colorado, Boulder and University of California, Irvine. 2010. Accessed September 2010. <http://epic.cs.colorado.edu/>.
• Shklovski, I., Palen, L., Sutton, J. “Finding Community Through Information and Communication Technology During Disaster Events.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work 2008 Conference Proceedings, November 8-12, 2008.
• Sumner, Mark.  “The Value of Infomation and Communications Technologies in Humanitarian Response.” MIT Press. Accessed Jan 2011. <http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/INOV_a_00043>.

Related articles

• How Crisis Mapping Saved Lives in Haiti (newswatch.nationalgeographic.com)
• Macrowikinomics 2: Ushahidi and Information as Bottleneck (whimsley.typepad.com)
• A web of support (economist.com)
• AdVoice: Crowdsourcing Social Good and Innovation (forbes.com)
• Haiti and the Power of Crowdsourcing ” iRevolution (crowdsourcing.com)
• Improving Beijing’s Urban Transportation with Crowdsourced Mapping (ushahidi.com)