This study investigates the low participation rates of women in OpenStreetMap (OSM), with female contributors representing only about 2-5%. Through a mixed-methods approach, the research identifies both barriers to participation, such as the complexity of learning and lack of social incentives, and positive motivations, including knowledge acquisition and social experiences. The study recommends strategies to enhance female involvement in OSM, such as fostering diversity-friendly events, simplifying the learning process, and developing community support networks.

1. Those 3% female mappers…
Why they participate and why not?
Yuwei Lin (University of Salford)
Manuela Schmidt, Silvia Klettner (TU Wien)
Renate Steinmann and Elisabeth Häusler (Salzburg Research)

2. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 2
Why this study?
 A gendered geo web - according to
e.g., Haklay & Budhathoki 2010;
Stark 2011, Lechner 2011,
typical OSM contributors are:
− Male (+ Mamils (middle-aged men in lycra)?),
well-educated and technology-savvy
− the number of women who contribute
to OpenStreetMap is only about 2-5%.
 Why so few women are participating in OSM?
 What interventions can we devise to effectively
enlarge the knowledge pool and improve diversity in
Volunteered Geographical Information projects?
~2-5%

3. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 3
A study using mixed methods
 Survey with academic conference delegates at LBS2011
(46 respondents: 9F 37M, and 63% (17/46) involved in OSM)
 Desk-based literature review and case study on user-
generated content platforms (including Facebook, Foursquare,
Wikipedia, Google Map Maker, OpenStreetMap)
 A 6-month course engaging 12 female students in
OpenStreetMap mapping
 Interviews with 9 female and 9 male OpenStreetMap
community members
 An online survey circulated to all OSM mappers resulting
in 516 responses

4. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 4
Women and User-Generated Content
A comparative study of spatially explicit, spatially implicit, and
non-spatial UGC platforms. Does the spatial aspect limit
women from contributing to UGC?
− Identifying individual, socio-technical factors linked with the low
number of female contributors in spatially explicit UGC platforms.
Results:
− Spatial aspect does not seem to be the critical point for non-
participation in VGI projects.
− Social incentives as well as platform-specific contribution and
communication mechanism influence women's participation
behaviours.

5. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 5
Longitudinal study
 12 female participants
− equivalent to the typical OSM user
(technology-savy, well-educated,
20-40 years old)
− students in cartography, urban
planning, information science
− incentive: course credits
 A qualitative and longitudinal
study to understand barriers
and motivations

6. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 6
Longitudinal study
Session 1:
Mapping with
Walking Papers
Session 1:
Mapping with
Walking Papers
Mapping sessionsMapping sessions
Follow-up surveyFollow-up survey
Mapping diaryMapping diary
Session 2:
Armchair mapping:
Mapping from
aerial imagery
Session 2:
Armchair mapping:
Mapping from
aerial imagery
Session 3:
Outdoor mapping
with GPS
(group activity)
Session 3:
Outdoor mapping
with GPS
(group activity)
Session 4:
Free mapping task
and reflection
Session 4:
Free mapping task
and reflection
2 months later2 months later 4 months later4 months later

7. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 7
Methods used
 Action-oriented (practices)
 Participatory observation
 Diary
 Course materials / assignments
 Focus groups

8. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 8
Positive experiences
 Knowledge acquisition
“You get to know your city when you go and map.”
 Outdoor experience
“Being outside mapping is really a lot of fun.” “Mapping is fun, and you can
add things that you like and that are interesting.”
 Contributing to open data
“After tagging so many points the map will be more complete.” “We use our
own knowledge to map something and other people can see that and
maybe it is useful for them and it makes you happy if your contribution is
used by others.”
 Self satisfaction / Visual feedback
“A motivating experience is when the results are immediately visible.”
 Social experience
“Looking back, I would say that mapping is all about interaction
– with people, with space, with maps.”

9. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 9
Negative experiences
 Complexity of learning
„There is a possibility to ask a question but there isn’t something for
beginners to know what to do.” „It takes time to find the right symbols and
tags – if they exist.”
 Missing visual feedback
“Mapped Points of Interest sometimes do not appear on the map –
depending on different zoom levels.”
 Insufficient technical feedback
„It would be useful if mistakes would be highlighted once you try to upload
your edited parts.” „When you did a lot of work and you cannot upload it, it’s
really frustrating.”
 Required time
„In general it would be an advantage, if the contribution process didn’t take
that long, because less passionate users might lose interest during long
mapping sessions."

10. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 10
What would motivate them to
continue mapping
Data extracted from the diaries and the post-event
questionnaires:
− Improved help and support options
− Dedicated tutorial for beginners
− A more user-friendly interface
− Less time-consuming mapping solutions
− Positive feedback / rewards for editing
− Mapping with other people indoors
− Mapping with other people outdoors
− More profile options (e.g., for networking and for sharing)
− Mapping for a dedicated purpose

11. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 11
Online survey in February 2013
 Target group: people, who know of OSM, but are not
necessarily active
 Dissemination channels:
− mailing lists in the geo communities
− Twitter
− OSM community

12. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 12
An invitation to our online survey
Dear visitors and colleagues,
We are currently conducting a study regarding your personal experiences
and attitudes towards platforms with user-generated content, particularly
OpenStreetMap. Completing the whole survey will take 10–15 minutes.
All participants have the chance to win one of five 30€ Amazon vouchers.
Of course we will handle your personal data confidentially, and will not pass
them to any third party.
Thank you for participating, we appreciate your help!
Silvia Klettner & Manuela Schmidt
January 31, 2013
Update on March 10: Our survey is closed now. 516 people completed the
questionnaire. The five winners have been contacted. Thank you very much for
your participation!
http://cartography.tuwien.ac.at/fem2map/2013/01/invitation-to-our-online-survey/

13. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 13
Online questionnaire: Results
 516 persons completed the questionnaire
− Mean age: 35.8; SD=11.7
− 75.4% male, 23.6% females, 0.9% assigned to no gender
 Groups of OSM experience:
− Group 1: “I have never heard of OSM.”
− Group 2: “I know OSM, but I have never contributed data myself.”
− Group 3: “I have an OSM account, but hardly ever contributed.”
− Group 4: “I used to be active in OSM, but I am not anymore (e.g.
no edits within the last 6 months).”
− Group 5: “I am currently active in OSM.”

14. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 14
OSM experience and gender
218 respondents in groups 2, 3, 4

15. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 15
Contexts of working with OSM

16. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 16
What would make people contribute (again)?

17. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 17
Qualitative responses
43 comments on open question with further aspects,
which might make respondents contribute (again).
Common categories:
− lack of time
e.g. “Changes in my life, the problems are not on the side of OSM”
Male, 35, Group 4
− overcoming first technical barriers
e.g. “Courses offered at Universities etc., get a first time experience on
how to contribute (how easy or difficult it really is)” Female, 27, Group 2
− practical/social aspects
e.g. “If my friends were still contributing” Female, 32, Group 3
− discontentment with current license and organization of OSM
e.g. “Less offensive contributor terms, transparency in OSMF, including
clear policies and the ability for users and members to influence decisions
[…]” Male, 31, Group 4

18. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 18
Interview Results
 How did you get involved in mapping?
 Why so few women in OSM mapping?
− Social: participants usually got involved through social networks
(e.g., men introduced men to the community, or involved their gfs)
− Structural: tech industry is still predominated by men, and society
does not particularly encourage women to be tech-savvy
(reinforcement of the inequality; normalisation of the situation)
− No personal motivations, no catalysts
 Have you been treated differently in the OSM community
because of your gender?
 How to encourage women to participate OSM?
 Should OSMF encourage women to participate?
− Yes, but how?

19. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 19
 larger group of potential contributors
− for collecting data
− for updating data
more diverse views of the world
Knowledge/data is created in different contexts. What content is regarded relevant?
Elwood 2008; LAM et al. 2011; Callahan & Herring 2011
“'the exclusion and under-representation of information from and about marginalised
people and places in existing data records is linked to the ensuing exclusion of their
needs and priorities from policy and decision making processes” (Elwood 2008)
Advantages of broader contributor groups

20. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 21
Recommended Strategies (1/2)
 Fostering project-based mapping:
Devise projects that concern women's welfares and
interests as a means to motivate women
− E.g., Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), zoo mapping,
mapping baby changing rooms, mapping with the National Trust
− Example: National Forest planning in the United States through
collecting public landscape values and special places data for input
into a national forest planning decision support system:
“Two of the three study results indicate that women mapped more of certain types of
landscape values than men, such as biological, life sustaining, and learning values.
These results are consistent with a number of studies that indicate the propensity of
women to express stronger environmental concern than men. To the extent that women
are underrepresented as a respondent group as is the case with the three studies, the
proportion of various landscape values will deviate from what would be expected in the
general population.” (Brown and Reed 2009, p. 173)

21. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 22
Recommended Strategies (2/2)
 Fostering diversity-friendly social events
(e.g., women and family friendly)
 Reducing the complexity of learning of OSM mapping and
editing (e.g. through online tutorials, such as learnOSM.org)
 More user-friendly, intuitive, efficient tools and better
documentation for data contribution in general
 Awareness raising – working with schools, local communities
 Build demonstrators to showcase the values of OSM, making
it close to women's everyday lives
 Education and training
 Peer support and community networks
 Make OSM fun and cool

22. Those 3% female OpenStreetMap Mappers: Why they participate and why not? 23
Thank you for your attention!
http://cartography.tuwien.ac.at/fem2map
This work was funded by the Austrian Ministry for Transport,
Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) within the structural research
program FEMtech fFORTE.