Mobile tools for community scientists

MOBILE TOOLS FOR COMMUNITY
SCIENTISTS
M. A. Brovelli (1), C. E. Kilsedar (1),
F. Frassinelli (1,2), E. Pessina (1)
(1) (1) Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
(2) (2) NINA, Trondheim, Norway

CITIZEN SCIENCE
• The term was first reported in Wikipedia in 2005 and
entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2014 with the
following description: “scientific work undertaken by
members of the general public, often in collaboration
with or under the direction of professional scientists
and scientific institutions”
Mobile Tools for Community Scientists –
Brovelli, Kilsedar, Frassinelli and Pessina

The citizen science projects can be distinguished in three different
classes:
● Long-running citizen science, which are the traditional ones, the
projects similar to those run in the past (Kobori et al., 2016; Bonney
et al., 2009)
● Citizen cyberscience, strictly connected with the use of
technologies (Grey, 2009) and which can be subclassified in:
○ volunteer computing, where citizens offer the unused computing
resources of their computers;
○ volunteer thinking, where citizens offer their cognitive abilities
for performing tasks difficult for machines;
○ passive sensing, where citizens use the sensors integrated into
mobile computing devices to carry out automatic sensing tasks.
CITIZEN SCIENCE

● Community science, involving a more significant commitment of
citizens also in designing and planning the project activities in a
more egalitarian (if not bottom-up) approach between scientists and
citizen scientists (Jepson & Ladle, 2015; Nascimento, Guimarães
Pereira, & Ghezzi, 2014; Breen, Dosemagen, Warren, & Lippincott,
2015), which can be divided into:
○ participatory sensing, where citizens use the sensors
integrated into mobile computing devices to carry out sensing
tasks;
○ Do It Yourself (DIY) science, which implies participants create
their scientific tools and methodology to carry out their
researches;
○ civic science, “which is explicitly linked to community goals and
questions the state of things” (Haklay et al., 2018).
CITIZEN SCIENCE

OPEN QUESTIONS
• Eliciting Participation
• Providing something back as a motivator
• Recruitment
• Ethical Issues
• Privacy
• Property
• Responsability
• Quality
• Standards
• Tools (Open and Free)

OPENSTREETMAP MOBILE TOOLS
✓ https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Android
✓ https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Andr
oid_applications
StreetCompleteVespucci MAPS.ME OsmAnd

GENERAL PURPOSE MOBILE TOOLS
geoODK
Geopaparazzi

 ODK is free and open source software for collecting, managing
and using data. Its source code is on GitHub and it is free.
 ODK is composed of three modules: ODK Build, ODK Aggregate
and ODK Collect.
OPEN DATA KIT

PoliMI Experiences: ARCHITECTURE

PoliMI Experiences
 Road pavement damages (2013)
 Architectural barriers (2013)

PoliMI Experiences
 Street furniture (2014)
 Water-related elements (2014)

PoliMI Experiences
 Biodiversity (2015)
 OSAKA Bike Parking (2015)
 Sustainable tourism (2015)

VIA REGINA ODK: FUNCTIONALITIES
✓ Download the form.

✓ Compile the form.

✓ Compile and save the form.

✓ Edit or send the compiled the form.

http://viaregina3.como.polimi.it/ViaRegina/index-en.html

VIA REGINA CROSS-PLATFORM : SCOPE
✓ Since the ODK application can be used only on Android
devices, we developed a cross-platform application to
collect similar data for the same purpose.
✓ Iubilantes, a voluntary cultural organization, has been
involved in the project as community scientists. Iubilantes
created slow mobility paths to walk in and around Via Regina,
using their experience gained through studying ancient paths.
✓ The application uses the codebase of the EmoMap
application, developed by the Research Group Cartography in
the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation in TU Wien
University (Haosheng Huang)

VIA REGINA: ARCHITECTURE
✓ All the software used for development is available to everyone at no
cost.
✓ It is available as a mobile application for Android and iOS as well as a
Web application (http://viaregina3.como.polimi.it/app/).
✓ Data can be collected online and offline.
✓ Download the POIs in JSON format at
http://viaregina3.como.polimi.it/db_points_url/_all_docs?include_docs=true
.

VIA REGINA: FUNCTIONALITIES
✓ Classify and rate a new point.

✓ Optionally add a comment, take/upload a picture of the point.

✓ Visualize the points added by you or everyone on a map.

✓ Query the collected points and access information about the application.

VIA REGINA: UPLOAD DATA IN QGIS
✓ QGIS plugin for downloading and visualizing the POIs
collected with Via Regina.
✓ Possibility of filtering the points with a bounding box.
✓ Hover on points to see the related information:
➢ coordinates;
➢ classification;
➢ rating;
➢ photo.
✓ Save the points in a .csv file.
✓ Free and open source:
✓ https://github.com/epessina/MHYCONOS-Plugin

VIA REGINA: UPLOAD DATA IN QGIS

LAND COVER COLLECTOR
✓ Land Cover Collector (LCC) is developed for collecting data for
Land Cover Validation (GlobeLand30 nomenclature is used);
✓ Similar architecture as Via Regina;
✓ Source available at: https://github.com/kilsedar/land-cover-
collector
✓ Mobile application for Android and iOS; Web application
(https://landcover.como.polimi.it/collector).
✓ Data can be collected online and offline.
✓ Collected data are released under the Open Database License
and can be downloaded in JSON format within the application.
✓ The application is currently available in eight languages: English,
Italian, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, French, and
Spanish.

LAND COVER COLLECTOR
✓ Take 4 photos: of the north, east, south
and west; . On iOS devices, the button
will be enabled once you find the right
direction and your device is in landscape
mode.
✓ Classification:
10 GlobeLand30 Classes

DEFIBRILLATOR HUNTER: SCOPE
✓ Defibrillator Hunter (DH) is a mobile application that allows
citizens to collect data on public defibrillators.
✓ Main goals:
➢ provide a way to check and supplement the existing
databases of the Public Authorities;
➢ engage and inform the citizens;
➢ collect extensive information for analytical studies (e.g. find
the optimal positioning of the machines).
✓ Free, Open Source and User friendly.
✓ Available both on Android and iOS for maximum coverage.
✓ In collaboration with AREU Lombardia (regional agency for
emergencies).

DEFIBRILLATOR HUNTER: ARCHITECTURE

DEFIBRILLATOR HUNTER: FUNCTIONALITIES
✓ Data available through open API.
✓ Secure authentication (OAuth 2.0).
✓ Score system to improve user engagement:
➢ points assigned for each defibrillator properly mapped;
➢ penalties for incorrect or fake data entries;
➢ global leader board constantly updated.
✓ Hint system: the application will alert you if you are close to a
defibrillator already present in the official database, without telling
you its exact location.
✓ Closed beta. Source code available at:
https://github.com/epessina/Defibrillator-Hunter

✓ Register, login and visualize your profile.

✓ Locate yourself on the map together with your mapped defibrillators.

✓ Insert a new defibrillator (location, accessibility, photo…) and visualize the
information about the ones you have already mapped.

LANDSLIDE MONITOR: SCOPE
✓ Cross platform mobile application that allows users with any degree
of knowledge to map landslides on the field.
✓ Main goals:
➢ help users with prior geological knowledge to collect relevant
data following a well-established procedure;
➢ guide un-experienced users in gathering structured and
exhaustive data providing a simplified version of the application.
✓ Same architecture as the defibrillator app.
✓ Borne as part of the project MHYCONOS (Mapping the
HYdrological Control on shallOw landSliding).
✓ Closed beta. Source code available at:
https://github.com/epessina/LandslideMonitor

LANDSLIDE MONITOR: FUNCTIONALITIES
✓ Data available through open API.
✓ The application can be used both online and offline:
➢ if the server cannot be reached when the user enters the data,
they are saved in the local database of the smartphone;
➢ once the user is back online, he can synchronize the local
database with the remote one.
✓ The application has two modes: expert and simple.
➢ You can switch at any time.
➢ In simple mode a lower number of less specific information is
asked.

✓ Locate yourself on the map and visualize the information regarding the
mapped landslides.

✓ Insert a new landslide as a “simple” user (left) or an “expert” user (centre
and right).

PSAB (PARTICIPATORY SENSING
APP BUILDER)
✓ It is a tool to create customized applications for data collections,
easy to use and which requires only a web browser.
✓ It is open source and free (https://gitlab.com/frafra/psab)
✓ It is based on XLSForm, which convert forms authored in Excel into
XForms that can be used with web or mobile platforms
(http://xlsform.org/)

PSAB: ARCHITECTURE

PSAB: administration

✓ Dublin Core Metadata Element Set 1.1 -
http://dublincore.org/document
✓ Catalog Service: pyCSW
PSAB: metadata
Provided by the user Computed automatically PSAB defaults
title, subject,
description, coverage
creator, identifier, date contributor, publisher,
type, format, language,
rights

✓ Community science is relatively new and is changing the
perspective of doing science
✓ Speaking about tools, some general tools, like ODK, were very
useful even if the limit was that they work only on Android
✓ A second general limitation is that those collaborative projects
are difficulty detectable.
✓ Some new cross-platform apps have been developing and are
available as free and open source (thanks Haosheng Huang)
✓ The solution for generating apps in an easy way is still under
study. We are working on a new solution for creating cross-
platform apps. Our solution includes a catalogue service in such
a way that projects and collected data can be searchable in
internet.
CONCLUSIONS

Thanks to Yuichiro Nishimura (Nara Women's University)
and the Organising Committee
Thanks to the co-authors:
THANK YOU SO MAP!
(cit. mapconcierge aka Taichi Furuhashi )
Questions?
candaneylul.kilsedar@polimi.it fraph24@gmail.com edoardopessina@yahoo.it

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