From humble beginnings in August 2004, the OSM project recently passed the 100,000 user milestone, of which a large number of are active contributors. The platform has expanded to include not just a data repository and display, but also a RESTful software API to support a growing community of users that tap into the database.  User support is supplied through an comprehensive and well-maintained wiki that provides tips for new users and guidance for map-making. Although the project was initiated and continues to be based in Britain, contributors now span the world. A graphic example of the world-wide embrace of this project can be seen in this video which depicts all the edits worldwide to OSM during 2008. Another notable measure of success and acceptance of the project is the Obama administration’s embrace of OSM-based maps.

The central criticism leveled against OSM (and for that matter, other crowd-sourced data initiatives) is that experts trained in geographic data collection will always produce data of higher quality and accuracy than untrained amateurs. While that is arguably true, it is also the case that OSM has provided an on-ramp to a broad range of amateurs who take an ardent interest in having an accurate and open repository of geospatial data at their disposal. If you monitor the OSM-Newbies mail list for a few days, you will instantly get a sense of how passionately OSM users are in creating accurate database and the pains they take to represent real world features correctly. Moreover, at least one study shows that OSM data compares favorably with data collected by the Ordnance Survey, the UK’s national mapping agency. So while OSM data will always be subject to the same vaguaries of accuracy and integrity as say, Wikipedia, the same user base that acts to self-correct Wikipedia also exists to continually improve OSM.

It is fair to conclude that the open source model of production transfers well to geospatial data creation. In fact, it may also be fair to say that the barriers to entry may be lower for data creation compared to software creation, where a more specialized skillset is required to contribute. More rigorous academic case studies of OSM and other crowd-sourced data initiatives would likely hit upon the key characteristics necessary to run a successful open source data project and provide insight into the conditions favorable to sustained growth and utility of the data.

Personally, I’ve always seen Traverse Technologies as a software firm that just happens to do a lot of geospatial work as opposed to the reverse. With that in mind, those of us in the more products and general software arena at Traverse have launched a new initiative called The League of Bits . I’ll let the web site speak for itself.

Software development methods have evolved over the last decade or so. For years the waterfall method relied on gathering user input at the front end of a project and hoped to hit the target weeks, months, or *gasp* years later.  This approach routinely yielded overly complex user interfaces, missing functionality, or products that just never materialized.  Fortunately, enough unmet expectations collided with the emergence of the Web to give us iterative development methods.  While there are many approaches to iterative development the key take-aways are short development cycles and tight integration of user feedback repeated throughout the project lifecycle.  Shorter cycles mean that engineers can focus on getting a few things done well, the customer can provide input on proposed designs and workflows, and minor adjustments can be made along the way to product delivery.  The iterative process honors each side’s respective role and contribution and keeps the communication lines open.  In the end the engineers are happier, the customers are engaged, and the end product is just what everyone had in mind (even if, as is often the case, they had no idea when the project started!)

Geospatial projects are inherantly and unavoidably complex.  All too often I’ve seen how easy it is for engineers and customers alike to fall into one of many traps involving data management, interoperability, portrayal, security, metadata, versioning… and so on.  These conversations inevitably take place between technical stakeholders from both sides of the project.  And its frequently at these junctions where user-engagement is lost or weakened.  Let’s face it we are in this business because we like the intellectual challenges it presents.  But we in this industry could all stand to remember the lessons learned from the iterative process.  We need to continually ask ourselves if our efforts directly support the goals of our customer.  It never hurts to ask because in the end, they’re always right.

In future articles I will taking a deeper dive into this and other issues related to user-centered development and product management. I look forward to your comments.

Traverse committed to using Flash and ActionScript over 4 years ago as a rich client alternative even though I knew we were going to have to roll our own map viewers (again…and again…and again…). We did it because of the promise of Flash in really being able to deliver the interactions we needed at a faster pace than Java’s JFC/Swing and with less debugging everywhere than JavaScript. Needless to say I’ve been thrilled at the momentum of ActionScript with the emergence of Flex and now AIR. OpenLayers going to ActionScript by way of Penn State University’s needs for an ActionScript API further validates the technology’s entry into mainstream development. Now if we can only get beyond writing map viewers – but that’s another topic.

A prime example is the growing presence of open source geospatial innovations and implementations. Tobin Bradley and the Mecklenburg County GIS staff won the G. Herbert Stout Award for Visionary Use of GIS for their REST Web Services Framework . There was an ad hoc ‘birds-of-a-feather’ session where discussion ranged from the state of open source adoption to NSDI 2.0 and the implications for geospatial interoperability. In addition, Chander Ganesan gave a presentation introducing MetaCarta’s OpenLayers .

In addition to open source subjects, this is the first year the conference has included presentations from the ‘neogeography’ community. Andrew Turne r gave a whirlwind overview of the neogeography landscape, highlighting the differences between traditional GIS and applications emerging from the web-centric community. You can view Andrew’s presentation here .

North Carolina cities continue to provide a high level of geographic services to their constituents.  The staff from the City of Asheville under the direction of Jason Mann won the G. Herbert Stout award in the city category for MapAsheville. You can click here to use the application.

Not surprisingly, making effective use of geospatial data resources continues to be a topic of ongoing interest. The NC Geographic Information Coordinating Council (NC GICC ) sponsored a panel highlighting several issues associated with data. Naturally, data sharing was a key topic, but also addressed were data archiving and preservation, and seamless statewide coverages for street centerlines, parcels, and orthophotography. (Incidentally, the NC GICC is the focal point for governing public geospatial information in North Carolina, and as such their web site has many resoures related to the coordination of state and local geospatial resources.)

I moderated a session on emerging "where aware" technologies which included a fascinating presentation about Tangible Geospatial Modeling using GRASS GIS by Dr. Helena Mitasova from NC State University.  This technique uses a clay form to model a watershed, which is subsequently scanned and analyzed for runoff and erosion.  Read more here .

There were more than a handful of interesting presentations I couldn’t attend but would have liked to. One in particular had to do with NC’s Master Address Data Set. Another was Denis Wood’s presentation about community mapping and psycho-geographic information systems. And I also missed the presentations moderated by Julia Harrel on the GeoWeb, the sessions moderated by Jeff Essic on historical aspects of GIS, and both of Wansoo Im’s presentations on various mashups. In spite of my inability to hear these presentations, I had ample opportunity for good ‘nuts-and-bolts’ discussions with friends and colleagues.

The term ‘viewshed’ refers to views across the landscape from a different vantage points. The key contributors to this blog are drawn from diverse academic and professional backgrounds that will be reflected in the postings.  Through a wide range of postings, we hope to engage you on the issues, events, and forces that surround the user experience of locational information. This might include open source software, software engineering, programming, government use of information, socio-economic issues, the semantic web, and other issues that relate to our central theme.

We encourage your feedback and reasoned commentary on these pages.