Analysing the Impact of Large Data Imports in OpenStreetMap

Abstract

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a global mapping project which generates free geographical information through a community of volunteers. OSM is used in a variety of applications and for research purposes. However, it is also possible to import external data sets to OpenStreetMap. The opinions about these data imports are divergent among researchers and contributors, and the subject is constantly discussed. The question of whether importing data, especially large quantities, is adding value to OSM or compromising the progress of the project needs to be investigated more deeply. For this study, OSM’s historical data were used to compute metrics about the developments of the contributors and OSM data during large data imports which were for the Netherlands and India. Additionally, one time period per study area during which there was no large data import was investigated to compare results. For making statements about the impacts of large data imports in OSM, the metrics were analysed using different techniques (cross-correlation and changepoint detection). It was found that the contributor activity increased during large data imports. Additionally, contributors who were already active before a large import were more likely to contribute to OSM after said import than contributors who made their first contributions during the large data import. The results show the difficulty of interpreting a heterogeneous data source, such as OSM, and the complexity of the project. Limitations and challenges which were encountered are explained, and future directions for continuing in this field of research are given.

A spatio-temporal analysis investigating completeness and inequalities of global urban building data in OpenStreetMap

“…For some places, the building footprints in OSM might already come from an imported dataset, but they need to be accepted by a human-in-the-loop process, for instance using the mapwith.ai editor 48 or similar tools. A large direct import of Microsoft building data into OSM seems unlikely at the moment, however, it has been shown for the road network that imports can increase contributor activity especially for already engaged mappers and an interplay of data imports and updates by contributors could improve OSM data significantly 49,50 .…”

Mining real estate ads and property transactions for building and amenity data acquisition

“…Therefore, two lines of effort have emerged -ameliorating the data and assessing their quality. Both often require a reference dataset, another instance of assumedly sufficient reliability that can be freely used to either ingest it in OSM or use it to cross-check the content of OSM (Zielstra et al 2013;Zheng & Zheng 2014;Brovelli et al 2016;Juhász & Hochmair 2018;Zhou 2018;Witt et al 2021;Majic et al 2021). The same concepts apply for other instances beyond OSM.…”

Analysis of Massive Imports of Open Data in Openstreetmap Database: A Study Case for France

“…Similar results were found in Grchenig et al (2014), and even more, the authors mentioned that the imported data had a negative influence on the OSM community. On the contrary, a recent study showed that contributor activity increased after a massive import (Witt et al, 2021). The question of how OSM ecosystem changes and will change, as the community of contributor expands to include industries or professional data producers, and massive external data co-exist with individual contributions in the databases, has been deeply studied in Hayat (2019).…”

“…We saw that recent research allows to study the influence of massive imports on OSM community behavior. To the best of the authors' knowledge, few researches focused on the evolution of massive imports over time in term (Witt et al, 2021). Our paper contributes to this gap by proposing an approach to identify types of modifications and evolution patterns.…”

“…Our paper contributes to this gap by proposing an approach to identify types of modifications and evolution patterns. Besides the relevance mentioned by Witt et al (2021) of measuring the influence of massive imports on both contributors and data, we can add that such work can benefit the institutions which published the data integrated in OSM and enable the enrichment and update of the original data thanks to the modifications made by the OSM community.…”