Paper: Mapping for the Masses Accessing Web 2.0 Through Crowdsourcing

Continuing the publication online via Issuu of our papers we include our recent paper written with Andrew Crooks, Michael Batty, and Richard Milton from CASA entitled "Mapping for the Masses Accessing Web 2.0 Through Crowdsourcing" as published in Social Science Computer Review.

"The authors describe how we are harnessing the power of web 2.0 technologies to create new approaches to collecting, mapping, and sharing geocoded data. The authors begin with GMapCreator that lets users fashion new maps using Google Maps as a base. Click the right arrow to turn the page:


The authors then describe MapTube that enables users to archive maps and demonstrate how it can be used in a variety of contexts to share map information, to put existing maps into a form that can be shared, and to create new maps from the bottom-up using a combination of crowdcasting, crowdsourcing, and traditional broadcasting. The authors conclude by arguing that such tools are helping to define a neogeography that is essentially ‘‘mapping for the masses,’’ while noting that there are many issues of quality, accuracy, copyright, and trust that will influence the impact of these tools on map-based communication."

Keywords:
network economies; neogeography; web-based services; map mashups; crowdsourcing; crowdcasting; online GIS.

The paper can be downloaded from here (pdf link).