I am not here to persuade you about the usefulness o

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Before We Start

• I am not here to persuade you about the
  usefulness or limitations of Neogeography or User
  Generated Content
• I am here to share my views on issues relating to
  the topic of spatial data quality and
  neogeography
• Disclaimer - In general, my observations derive
  from my familiarity with mapping, navigation and
  local search

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My Background

• PhD in Geography, specializing in Cartography
• Attended AutoCarto 1 in 1974 (and gave the
  keynote in 2008)
• Associate Professor of mapping and geography at
  SUNY Albany (19721985)
• Associate at Spad Systems
• Chief Cartographer, Chief Technologist and VP of
  BizDev for Rand McNally (1986-1999)
• CTO and EVP of Engineering for go2 Systems (YP
  over cell phones)
• Now run a consulting business focused on
  geospatial, especially local search, mapping and
  navigation applications

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Data Quality and Neogeography

• Dr. Mike Dobson
• President
• TeleMapics LLC
• mwd_at_telemapics.com

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Spatial Data Quality?

• Overall concern regarding the fitness of data
  for a particular use
• Accuracy of position
• resolution
• Accuracy of Attribution
• Logical Consistency
• Completeness
• Including spatial coverage
• Temporal relevance
• Metadata

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Spatial Datas Emerging Popularity

• World of spatial data is exploding
• Accessibility to spatial data increasing
• Availability of spatial data increasing
• Todays online environment provides
• Easy-to-use tools for collecting spatial data
• Easy-to-use tools for analyzing spatial data
• Easy-to-use tools for presenting spatial data

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Why Is This of Concern?

• The quality of spatial data mitigates the success
  of communicating spatial concepts
• Could this explosive growth have an influence on
  the quality of spatial data?

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Why Data Quality Is Key
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No Integrity!
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Neogeography

• Neogeography
• new geography using non-traditional tools
• Neogeographers
• Want to communicate/share their interests in
  geography and are willing to do something about it

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NeoGeos

• What Roles do Neogeographers play in the process
  of communicating spatial data?
• Data collectors database creators
• Data analyzers
• Data Presenters
• While all three roles impact or are influenced by
  data quality, today I will focus on
  neogeographers and data collection /database
  creation

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Spatial Data Quality and Neogeography

• In order to help you understand my persuasion on
  data quality and neogeography, I would like to
  explore User Generated Content
• UGC is one of the primary means that
  neogeographers use to express their interest in
  Geography
• On this journey we will loop outside of geography
  and then fall back in through mapping and other
  uses of spatial data.

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User Generated Content?

• Content that is produced by users of web sites
  and digital media
• Contrasted with traditional media producers such
  as broadcasters, production companies publishing
  companies and map database companies

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So Whats Important About UGC?

• Equality of opportunity to publish
• Coupled with one of the most significant
  demographic trends in the last century
• Its about me (e.g. use of YouTube, MySpace,
  Facebook)
• Especially in respect to the streets, roads and
  trails I travel, as well as the POIs I frequent
  and the spatial topics of interest to me

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Social Networking
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How Did This Happen?

• Technology that allows you to be connected, as
  well as to communicate and collaborate on your
  own terms
• Internet
• Cellular telephony
• Development of comprehensive spatial databases
• Pushing geospatial into the mainstream
  -Neogeography

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How Did This Happen?

• Networks provide for
• Collective intelligence the hive mentality or
  perhaps the Borg
• Aggregated knowledge from decentralized sources
  (Wikipedia Wikinomics)
• Low cost collaboration

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UGC Potential Benefits

• Linuss law
• With enough eyes all bugs (spatial errors) become
  trivial
• Contributors exhibit
• Self selection
• Focus
• Self benefit
• Numerousness
• There should be more interested spatial data
  contributors than professional map editors
• Spatial distribution
• The distribution of UGCers is more ubiquitous
  than that of professional map editors.

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Criticisms Of UGC

• Some error situations are too complex to be
  understood real-time
• Usability may be low
• May require extensive error checking
• User priorities may lead to unreliability
• Prejudice in responses

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Lake What Road?
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Not enough Contributors -Data Points?
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User Priorities - Oooops
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Prejudice in Response?
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Prejudice in Response
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UGC And Spatial Databases
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Spatial Database Creation
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Whats Being Optimized In The Previous Process?

• spatial data quality
• Accuracy of position
• resolution
• Accuracy of Attribution
• Logical Consistency
• Completeness
• Including spatial coverage
• Temporal relevance
• Metadata

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How Optimized?

• Data Quality is an integral part of the process
• Initially
• Data collected according to specifications
• Bad data re-collected or placed in the update
  queue
• Ongoing
• Every year significant spatial changes are
  accommodated.
• Areas of high change are identified and updated.
• Other changes are found by systematically working
  research teams through the entire coverage over
  time
• The overall assignment is designed to maximize
  the time value of money, while increasing the
  integrity of the database.

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Harmonization

• It is this attempt to actively harmonize all data
  that distinguishes database building efforts.
• Important Issues
• Who directs crowdsourced data from an editorial
  perspective?
• Who sets standards for crowdsourced data?
• Who Quality Controls crowdsourced data?
• What external guidance exists in crowdsourced
  systems ?

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Three Categories of Spatial Data

• Controlled data
• OS, Navteq, TeleAtlas, INFOusa
• Hybrid (a mix of controlled and uncontrolled
  data)
• Google, Yahoo, MSN, TomTom
• Crowdsourced (uncontrolled)
• OSM, Flickr, etc

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Issue

• It is possible to manage controlled data quality
  to meet specific requirements
• It is possible to manage hybrid data quality to
  meet specific requirements
• But can you manage crowdsourced data quality to
  meet specific requirements on a reliable basis?
• Lets look at database compilation for some
  insights

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Compilation

• Commercial
• Training in compilation
• Specialization
• Staff size limited
• Research limited
• Sweat of the brow
• But salaried sweat of the brow

• Wiki
• Self Selection
• Local experience
• Staff size potentially unlimited
• Research hours potentially unlimited
• Avocation

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Compare and Contrast

• Commercial
• What are my coverage goals?
• What are my accuracy goals?
• How Much can I spend on updating?
• What size of capable staff can I afford?
• How well can I pay them?
• How can I otherwise incent them to create the
  best database possible?

• WIKI
• How many people will contribute?
• How many are capable?
• Where are they located?
• Does this match areas of weak coverage?
• How long will it take to get good results over
  large coverages?
• How to motivate these collaborators over long
  periods?

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What Are The Potential Weaknesses of WIKI?

• Common issues
• Not enough data gatherers to validate the data
• or a method to redeploy them
• Not enough coverage to meet the need (the
  distribution of the UGCers)
• Or a method to redeploy them
• Lack of Standards
• Lack of Quality Control
• But all of these limitation can be accommodated

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Getting Around Some UGC Issues
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Are Other Types of Spatial Databases Superior?

• Even with the benefits of Moolah () -Major
  navigation databases are
• Out of date
• Inaccurate
• Non-comprehensive
• Variable quality
• Too expensive to maintain
• Navteq database extension and update costs in
  2007 were over 300,000,000

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www.refnum.com/osm/gmaps/Haywards Heath
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And Thats Why UGC and Neogeographers

• Will become an integral part of building spatial
  databases
• Hybrid data collection systems using UCG and
  controlled data are where geospatial is going
• Lets look

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Old Information Sharing
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New Information Sharing
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Whats The New Process
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Social Networking Tools Of Interest in Compilation
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Spatial Data Collection

• Some UGC will be active
• User connects to an app and enters relevant
  spatial data for updating or extending a spatial
  database
• Some UGC will be passive
• Device tracks and reports (anonymously) user
  paths, builds database by merging path
  information over time
• Passive is particularly useful in building
  navigation databases

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Relative Cost
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Relative Accuracy
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Summing UP

• Data Collection Systems
• Closed commercial compilation efforts, no UGC
• Open WIKI approaches, no proprietary data
• Hybrid where geospatial is going
• Advantages spatial data accuracy by contributing
  the best of both approaches.

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Raises These Questions

• Will the winners be
• Established commercial companies that capitalize
  on UGC to augment their data?
• New competitors that commercialize UGC and
  augment these data to compete with established
  commercial systems?

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PND Data Flow A Winner
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UGC Open Street Data Flow No Medal
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Commercializing UGC
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Relative Benefits Of Types Of UGC By Device
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Why We Need UGC and Neogeographers
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Thanks