Web information monitoring and crowdsourcing for promoting and enhancing the Algerian geoheritage

Abstract

The documentation and management of information concerning geological sites are important activities in all the steps of the geoheritage conservation and its day-to-day management. This documentation is mostly available on the web; it includes varied types of data such as pictures, scientific publications, news, and blog articles. In order to ensure the efficient management of the geoheritage resources, scientists and people involved in the promotion of the geoheritage and geotourism should have access to this documentation and kept updated of the most recent and relevant information. In this study, we propose the development of a web information monitoring system that automates the search and the collection of different types of documents related to the Algerian geosites available on the web. It is designed as a tool that continuously browses the web using the most popular search engines and then disseminates the results to the users through periodic newsletters. This proposed system will also serve to chronologically organize all the pictures of geosites gathered from the web and thus in order to study the evolution of Algerian geosites over time. For this purpose, we use one of the crowdsourcing methods in the field of knowledge management that is games with a purpose (GWAP). The idea here is to involve people in sorting pictures of geosites through a playful interface. The results obtained show that this system is a valuable tool that can assist geoscientists and decision makers in enhancing the geoheritage.