[okfn-labs] Fwd: Open Infrastructure for GeoWeb Community Maps — invitation

[Jenny Molloy]

Hi

We're very excited about this in the open science working group and it
could have real potential for mapping OKF communities, projects, events and
more in an easy, customisable and open way.
Muki is looking for developers and input into the details of the plan as
well as comments on a licensing framework.
Would anyone be interested in getting involved? There is a hackathon
planned in February and they're obviously also looking for longer term
assistance.

Jenny

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Haklay, Muki <m.haklay at ucl.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 11:06 PM
Subject: Open Infrastructure for GeoWeb Community Maps — invitation


 Hello,****

** **

As you might know, since 2006 I have been involved in various project that
support web-based participatory mapping. In 2007, with a huge effort by
Claire Ellul and others, this turned to the community mapping platform (
http://www.communitymaps.org.uk/) which was used by Mapping for Change
since then in over 30 communities. However, 2007 is very long time on the
GeoWeb and it’s time to redevelop. ****

** **

We’ve decided that we don’t want to develop yet another system, but to
start a process to create an open infrastructure for community mapping – by
this we mean the ability to add information, audio, images and videos to
base-maps to allow communities and groups to express issues that concern
them. Most importantly, we want to enable the development of tools that
will allow people who work with communities on the ground to use a range of
tools (e.g. EpiCollect for data collection) and link them quickly and
easily to qualitative and contextual information that represents community
views and wishes. We want to do carry out the process of development
openly, in the hope that you, or other people who are interested in
participatory mapping will join the development effort so we can all
benefit from extensible and flexible framework that can support this type
of work. Our hope is that with a robust back-end that can support the needs
of community mapping (e.g. object level control on what should be done with
it and how and where it should be displayed, ability to moderate inputs or
not etc.) we can have multiple frontends that can serve many purposes, and
also link to many of the existing systems that are out there and that you
already use. ****

** **

To start the process,  Oliver Roick, who is leading the process wrote a
concept note that we are opening for discussion, so if you are interested
in this type of application and would potentially follow it or, even
better, want to consider working together to develop it, please look at it
at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vWdzei4JgD0oQwe9HYE2XvalWjRZT5pZUEE5vLisKV4/edit?usp=sharing.
If you would like to join with editing and comments, just ask for
editing
rights and Oliver will approve you. ****

** **

Our plans are that after receiving comments from people that we know and
appreciate (you!) we will open the discussion on forums such as the mailing
lists such as PPGIS.net, the appropriate linkedin groups etc., and then
move to the development of the details of the API, use-cases and, of course
the software. If you know someone with technical skills and interests that
you think should see this and is missing for the list (hence sharing the
names) please forward the message to them.****

** **

For the development of the software, we will work towards a week long
hackathon that we will host as part of the citizen cyberscience summit in
20-22 February 2014, and we hope that this will allow us to start having
the infrastructure with demonstration in the middle of next year. At the
moment, Oliver is the only developer that works on the project, but by
January another developer will join him and another one in May. We don’t
expect it to be enough and we hope that other people will join us to
develop an infrastructure that can be used freely in a range of projects. **
**

** **

We are committed to make the project open throughout, from the discussion
note to the specification to the software. If you can comment in the
document on which licencing framework works best for you (in case that you
are interested in using it), this will help us to ensure that the project
starts in the right way…****

** **

We will also be grateful for any suggestion to name this infrastructure –
OIGCM doesn’t look very nice. ****

** **

I apologise in advance if this stuff is not of interest to you. I hope that
‘reply all’ would be avoided! ****

** **

Best regards****

Muki****

** **

Muki Haklay: Professor of GIScience****

Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) research group****

Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering****

University College London (UCL)****

Gower St. London WC1E 6BT****

T: +44 20 7679 2745 E: m.haklay at ucl.ac.uk  W: www.ucl.ac.uk/excites  ****

Mapping for Change - www.mappingforchange.org.uk ****

Blog: povesham.wordpress.com  ****

** **
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