This document summarizes a discussion on neocartography and crowdsourcing. It discusses how neocartographers may not have traditional mapping backgrounds and use open data and tools. It also discusses how crowdsourcing is changing geospatial data by sourcing tasks to communities through open calls. Examples are given of crowdsourced mapping projects for disasters. Cloud computing is allowing maps to be created and shared online. Overall it explores how new mapping approaches are emerging through open data and participation.

1. #soc2012
What’s Neo?
Steve Chilton (Middlesex University)
Chair of the Society of Cartographers
Chair of the ICA Commission on Neocartography

2. Who said ?
"The biggest things in life have been
achieved by people who, at the start, we
would have judged crazy. And yet if they
had not had these crazy ideas the world
would have been more stupid."
Arsene Wenger

3. Neocartography
“map makers who may not have come from traditional
mapping backgrounds, and are frequently using open
data and open source mapping tools …..”
“….. the blurring of boundaries between map producers
and map consumers …..”
“….. the availability of data and tools allows these
neocartographers to make their own maps, and often be
the intended audience as well – that is to say they may
make the maps for themselves, just because they can”
http://neocartography.icaci.org/

4. The Crowd
“Crowdsourcing is the act of
sourcing tasks traditionally
performed by specific individuals
to a group of people or community
(crowd) through an open call.”
source: wikipedia
CROWDSOURCING IS RADICALLY CHANGING THE GEODATA
LANDSCAPE: CASE STUDY OF OPENSTREETMAP
http://hostmaster.icaci.org/documents/ICC_proceedings/ICC2009/html/nonref/22_6.pdf

5. Early crowdsourcing ?
The Longitude Prize was a
reward offered by the British
government for a simple and
practical method for the
precise determination of a
ship's longitude.
The prize was established
through an Act of Parliament
(the Longitude Act) in 1714.

6. Crowdsourced maps

7. Haiti earthquake response mapping project
“I wish there was a
way that I can
express to you
properly how
important your OSM
files were to us.”
Member of Fairfax County Urban
Search & Rescue Team
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti/Earthquake_map_resources

8. Crowdmap
http://de21.digitalasia.chubu.ac.jp/floodmap/

9. “3G mobile data network crowdsourcing survey by
BBC News”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14582499

10. http://www.surveymapper.com/mapView.aspx?id=172

11. http://www.designandenvironment.co.uk/2011/10/aerial-mapping-session/

12. The amount of manual work needed for ensuring quality
for a crowdsourcing system is a major limitation for large
scale applications. We introduce CrowdSynth, an end-to-
end system design for automatically solving and
managing crowdsourcing tasks. CrowdSynth focuses on
a class of crowdsourcing tasks for which the goal is
identifying a hidden world state by accessing multiple
workers. It uses machine learning and decision-theoretic
optimization to leverage the complementary strengths of
humans and computational agents to solve
crowdsourcing tasks.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/eckamar/crowdsynth.pdf

13. AGILE and EuroSDR invite researchers, national
mapping & cadastre agencies and GIS professionals to
participate in a 1½ day workshop to discuss the role of
crowd-sourcing in the context of national mapping.
19th – 20th January, 2012, University of Nottingham, UK
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/grace/events/eventsarticles/crowd-sourcing-in-national-
mapping.aspx

14. Open Data Institute - TBL

15. The Cloud
http://mapsof.net/uploads/static-maps/land_ocean_ice_cloud_1024.jpg

16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8625813.stm

17. Cloud computing
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing.htm

18. http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/builder.html

19. Create Customised Maps in the Cloud with
Amazon EC2 and Tile Drawer
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/08/28/create-customized-maps-in-
the-cloud-with-amazon-ec2-and-tile-drawer/

20. “GIS Cloud Starts HTML5 Mapping Revolution”
http://www.giscloud.com/map/16648/parcels-300k-polygons

21. “Maps and Apps for Everyone”
http://www.vector1media.com/spatialsustain/esris-move-to-the-cloud-enables-
intelligent-web-maps.html

23. http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?
webmap=9d48ce9b6837492e982e980402d3ed11

24. Mapbox
http://mapbox.com/

25. References
• Dava Sobel's 1996 bestseller Longitude recounts the
story of the Longitude Prize
ISBN: 978-1857025712
• James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds is a
standard text on the issues
ISBN: 978-0-385-72170-7
• All about OSM – OpenStreetMap: Using and
Enhancing the Free Map of the World
by Frederik Ramm, Jochen Topf, and Steve Chilton
ISBN 978-1-90686-011-0

26. Map Compare
http://tile.bbbike.org/mc/

27. Geeky – moi?
http://rweait.dev.openstreetmap.org/daily/SteveChilton_career.html

28. “Discover what is going on Around
You”
http://recce.at/

29. Instant versus analytic
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/demos/medal-

30. http://cartonerd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/does-it-matter-if-map-is-wrong.html

31. Medals by Population or GDP
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/olympic_infographics_and_data/9467077/London-2012-
Olympics-interactive-world-medal-map-by-population-GDP-and-geographical-size.html

32. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/aug/16/new-olympic-world-
map-sheffield-university

33. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/olympic-medals-map-gdp_n_1729090.html

34. http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ParalympicParticipants2012.jpg

35. All mapped out?
The question cartographers are always being
asked at cocktail parties, says Heyman, is
whether there's really any mapmaking still left to
do: we've mapped the whole planet already,
haven't we? The question could hardly be more
misconceived. We are just beginning to grasp
what it means to live in a world in which maps are
everywhere – and in which, by using maps, we
are mapped ourselves.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/28/google-apple-digital-mapping
Steve Chilton: steve8@mdx.ac.uk
http://neocartography.icaci.org/ @steev8