A Digital Platform to Support Citizen-Government Interactions from Volunteered Geographic Information and Crowdsourcing
This paper presents two case studies of volunteered geographic information processes in two different neighborhoods in Mexico City. Both cases deal with citizen empowerment and actions directed for the improvement of their local surroundings. They are con
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Centro de Investigación en Geografía y Geomática “Ing. Jorge L. Tamayo”, A.C. Contoy #137 esq. Chemax, Col. Lomas de Padierna, Tlalpan, 14240 Mexico, D.F., Mexico [email protected]
Abstract. This paper presents two case studies of volunteered geographic infor‐ mation processes in two different neighborhoods in Mexico City. Both cases deal with citizen empowerment and actions directed for the improvement of their local surroundings. They are constructed in a bottom-up fashion: from the citizens towards the local authorities. A digital platform was developed to support usergenerated data collection for both cases; the second being an evolution of the first that incorporates several enhancements. The collection of enough citizen data is useful to focus efforts to negotiate with the authorities in detected regions and matters that need attention. Citizen-generated maps are useful communication tools to convey messages to the authorities, as the identification of these locations and situations provide a better picture of what, from the citizens’ perspective, is significantly deviated from the government’s point of view. The platform incor‐ porates a way to validate official data, a voting strategy as a first approach to assess the credibility of citizen-contributed observations and crowdsourced information on parcel records. Keywords: Volunteered geographic information · Crowdsourcing · Citizen science · Citizen empowerment · Geospatial web platform · Web mapping
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Introduction
Geographic data collection has experienced a paradigm shift in the sense that users not only consume, but also generate new data. It has been progressively easier for people to participate in mapping processes, thus effectively becoming a citizen mapper. Recent tendencies show that it is not necessary for people to be certified in the field of cartog‐ raphy to actually be able to contribute to local cartographic records and collaborate in the collection and updating of geographic data. Traditionally, governmental agencies have been in charge of this task, following strict protocols and adhering to quality assurance standards in order to provide the best data available for different purposes: population, cadastral, vehicle registrars, busi‐ nesses, censuses, natural resources, etc. It has become increasingly common for citizens to collect geographic data that does not necessarily conform to these governmental © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 O. Gervasi et al. (Eds.): ICCSA 2016, Part III, LNCS 9788, pp. 167–182, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-42111-7_14
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standards. Apart from collecting, with help of all the mapping technologies available on the web [1], it is also common for users to disclose part of this data, in what constitutes one of the pillars of neogeography: “sharing location information with friends and visi‐ tors, help shape context, and conveying understanding through knowledge of place” [2]. Volunteered geographic information (VGI) is, as defined by Goodchild, “the wide‐ spread engagement of lar
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