Bridges and Barriers: An Exploration of Engagements of the Research Community with the OpenStreetMap Community

A Yair Grinberger,Godwin Yeboah,Peter Mooney,Levente Juhász,Marco Minghini

doi:10.3390/ijgi11010054

Abstract

The academic community frequently engages with OpenStreetMap (OSM) as a data source and research subject, acknowledging its complex and contextual nature. However, existing literature rarely considers the position of academic research in relation to the OSM community. In this paper we explore the extent and nature of engagement between the academic research community and the larger communities in OSM. An analysis of OSM-related publications from 2016 to 2019 and seven interviews conducted with members of one research group engaged in OSM-related research are described. The literature analysis seeks to uncover general engagement patterns while the interviews are used to identify possible causal structures explaining how these patterns may emerge within the context of a specific research group. Results indicate that academic papers generally show few signs of engagement and adopt data-oriented perspectives on the OSM project and product. The interviews expose that more complex perspectives and deeper engagement exist within the research group to which the interviewees belong, e.g., engaging in OSM mapping and direct interactions based on specific points-of-contact in the OSM community. Several conclusions and recommendations emerge, most notably: that every engagement with OSM includes an interpretive act which must be acknowledged and that the academic community should act to triangulate its interpretation of the data and OSM community by diversifying their engagement. This could be achieved through channels such as more direct interactions and inviting members of the OSM community to participate in the design and evaluation of research projects and programmes.

Highlights

OpenStreetMap (OSM), a collaborative mapping initiative which started in 2004 to create an open and free editable digital map of the world, has become the pinnacle of volunteered and crowdsourced geographic information (VGI) [1]
The aim of this paper is to present a first exploration of the latter issue, focusing on how the position of academics affect OSM research and examining questions such as: What are the relations between interactions, understanding of OSM, and research? When and how interactions are needed and beneficial? When do they have an adverse effect? Should the research community reconsider the ways and extent to which it interacts with the OSM community? We base our study on the premise that there are two communities interacting with
The results found from the review of the attributes listed in Table 1 are described in the following

Summary

Introduction

OpenStreetMap (OSM), a collaborative mapping initiative which started in 2004 to create an open and free editable digital map of the world, has become the pinnacle of volunteered and crowdsourced geographic information (VGI) [1]. OSM, as a type of VGI, is portrayed as a social product in which data are tightly connected to the backgrounds of contributors and contributor communities, e.g., their personal and socio-cultural worlds interacting with each other [11]. This marks OSM as a possible “boundary object” with its own evolving “social world” [12] which may be further thought of as a community of communities [13]. Social worlds are “networks of regular activity and mutual response whose boundaries are set by lines of communication and participation” and may be subdivided further into sub-worlds based on factors such as formal organization allegiances, access to resources and power, ideology, or professional identities [12]

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Conclusion