The Scale of VGI in Map Production: A Perspective on European National Mapping Agencies

Abstract

The perspective of European National Mapping Agencies (NMA) on the role of citizen sensing in map production was explored. The NMAs varied greatly in their engagement with the community generating volunteered geographic information (VGI) and in their future plans. From an assessment of NMA standard practices, it was evident that much VGI was acquired with a positional accuracy that, while less than that typically acquired by NMAs, actually exceeded the requirements of the nominal data capture scale used by most NMAs. Opportunities for VGI use in map revision and updating were evident, especially for agencies that use a continuous rather than cyclical updating policy. Some NMAs had also developed systems to engage with citizen sensors and examples are discussed. Only rarely was VGI used to collect data on features beyond the standard set used by the NMAs. The potential role of citizen sensing and so its current scale of use by NMAs is limited by a series of concerns, notably relating to issues of data quality, the nature and motivation of the contributors, legal issues, the sustainability of data source, and employment fears of NMA staff. Possible priorities for future research and development are identified to help ensure that the potential of VGI in mapping is realized.

Crowdsourcing, Citizen Science or Volunteered Geographic Information? The Current State of Crowdsourced Geographic Information

“…Very few sites are focused on the collection of framework data, which is of relevance to national mapping agencies, yet the latter have a strong and growing interest in the use of crowdsourced geographic information [76]. In addition, metadata standards are only mentioned as an option on one site.…”

A Citizen Science Approach for Collecting Toponyms

“…The absolute number of openly available toponyms increased due to the increase in crowdsourced and volunteered geographic information (VGI). Government agencies began to realize the potential use of citizens as scientists [15,[17][18][19][20]. Researchers also explored crowdsourcing and gamification approaches in toponymic survey, place naming, and engaging the public in gazetteer creation [15,18,[20][21][22][23].…”

“…Public authorities and researchers also explored and tested mobile applications to collect vernacular place names, or urban names, which involved multiple stakeholders in several projects [20,21,33]. However, very little attention has been paid to the role and motivation of people's contribution as toponymists in digital place naming.…”

“…In the Netherlands, historical societies have been involved in the Dutch Kadaster project to improve toponym data as part of the new system of key registers for topography [15]. In Sweden, a crowdsourcing project among the Swedish NMA, Lantmäteriet, and the Swedish municipalities has developed a mobile application to collect toponyms (vernacular place names) and provide new toponym information in urban areas [20,33]. In Great Britain, the public have contributed and used the GB1900 Web application (provided by the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK) to help historians check and review place names and gather memories associated with places.…”

“…The emerging technologies offer some advantages, which enable people to contribute and reduce problems associated with the lack of staff. Mobile applications and Web-GIS for toponym data collection have been developed and explored by many researchers and governments [18,20,22,33].…”