Identifying Success Factors in Crowdsourced Geographic Information Use in Government

This paper examines the toponymic heritage used in Kenya’s Authoritative Geographic Information (AGI) toponyms database of 26,600 gazetteer records through documentation and characterization of meanings of place names in topographic mapping. A comparison was carried out between AGI and GeoNames and between AGI and OpenStreetMap (OSM) volunteered records. A total of 15,000 toponymic matchings were found. Out of these, 1567 toponyms were then extracted for further scrutiny using AGI data in the historical records and from respondents on toponyms’ meanings. Experts in toponymy assisted in verifying these data. From the questionnaire responses, 235 names occurred in more than one place while AGI data had 284. The elements used to characterize the toponyms included historical perceptions of heritage evident in toponyms in their localities, ethnographic, toponymical and morphology studies on Kenya's dialects. There was no significant relationship established between the same place name usages among dialects as indicated by a positive weak correlation r (438), = 0.166, p < 0.001 based on the effect of using the related places and the distance between related places. The weak correlation implies that the one name one place principle does not apply due to diverse language boundaries, strong bonds associated with historical toponyms in the form of heritage and significant variations on how names resist changes to preserve their heritage.

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Citizen and government co‐production of data: Analyzing the challenges to government adoption of VGI

Khan

Johnson

2020

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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• Different organizational and technical challenges emerge at different phases of VGI adoption in government. • Challenges occur throughout the development process; however, many of them resolve with time and experience. • Using VGI in government requires improved practices within the phases of initiation, implementation, and expansion. With the recent rise of open government and open data initiatives, governments are increasingly adopting new approaches of citizen participation to support a more democratic, transparent, and inclusive government system. Among other forms of citizen participation, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is one approach to connecting citizens and government. Accepting VGI as a way to update government data or collect near-realtime information from citizens can create a partner-like relationship where citizens voluntarily contribute time and effort to support government actions. However, as a relatively new approach to citizen participation and data collection, VGI requires evaluation from the perspective of governments. This research investigates the challenges and opportunities that governments have found through the implementation of VGI projects. Results are drawn from interviews conducted with 19 government organizations, revealing organizational and technical challenges that limit the adoption of VGI. Organizational challenges are associated with government mindset, implementation, and project management, while technical challenges involve development of the system and quality of data. Given these challenges, we derive recommendations within the phases of project initiation, implementation, and expansion that can foster VGI adoption in government.

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Identifying Success Factors in Crowdsourced Geographic Information Use in Government

Cited by 3 publications

References 4 publications

Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation for Safe and Healthy Urban Environments: The Case of Citizen Sensing

Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation for Safe and Healthy Urban Environments: The Case of Citizen Sensing

Citizen science characterization of meanings of toponyms of Kenya: a shared heritage

Citizen and government co‐production of data: Analyzing the challenges to government adoption of VGI

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