Who map in OpenStreetMap

and Why?

Nama Budhathoki, McGill University

Muki Haklay, University College London

Zorica Nedovic-Budic, University College Dublin

State of the Map 2010– Atlanta, USA, 14-15 August, 2010

Looked from the traditional mode of

production, it is a puzzle (Benkler

2005, 2006)

Understanding this question lies at the

heart of the science of volunteered

geographic information (Goodchild 2007)

Research questions

•Who are those mappers?

•Why do they map?

•What contributory pattern do mappers

demonstrate?

Theoretical framework for VGI

motivational study

• Unique ethos

• Learning

• Fun

• Instrumentality

• Recreation

• Meeting self need

• Altruism

• Recognition

• Career

• Reciprocity

• Community

• Monetary

• Socio-political

• More………...

Clary et al. (1998), Clary and Synder (1999); Stebbins (1982), Gould et al. (2008);

Wasko and Faraj (2005), Lee et al. (2008), Hertel et al. (2003), Shah (2006), Hippel

and Krogh (2003), Nov (2007),

Methodology

• Analysis of Planet.OSM to identify

patterns of contribution

• Qualitative analysis of talk-pages

• Survey of globally distributed contributors

Who are the mappers?

Male(96%)

Female(3%)

N=426

Below 20 years(4%)

20-30 years(32%)

31-40 years(32%)

41-50 years(22%)

Above 50 years

(10%)

High School or

lower(5%)

Some College(17%)

College/ University

degree(49%)

Post-graduate degree(21%)

Doctoral degree(8%)

<1 year(26%)

1-5 years(15%)

6-10 years(7%)

>10 years(3%)

None(49%)

Gender Age

Education GIS Experience

Student(17%)

Employed

(63%)

Retired (2%)

Self

employed

(15%)

Other(3%)

Commercial(71%)Academia

(11%)

Federal govt.(7%)

Local govt.(6%)

Non-profit(2%)

Other(3%)

Place In percent (%)

Home 96

Office 18

Mobile 13

Public libraries 0

Internet cafes 0.3

Others 0.6

Occupation Employment

Being an author of books which are using maps, I am not

able to pay royalty fees to map companies like google or

teleatlas.

It's a lot of fun, and it's nice to see your work appear 1-2

hours after it's done available to the whole world :)

I love to see the area around where I live accurately mapped

(and updated in a timely manner). I get enormous

satisfaction out of this entire process as well as know that

I'm contributing towards a valuable resource that others

can use. I also enjoying exploring on my bike new areas

that I'm mapping - I've discovered some cool suburban

places that I never new existed - often within meters of

roads that I drive down regularly.

Motivations

Perceived Motivations

Motivational construct Mean SD

Project goal 6.14 .77

Altruism 5.73 .83

Instrumentality of local knowledge 5.58 .81

Learning 5.29 .95

Self need 5.2 1.19

Social/Show off 4.04 1.00

Monetary 2.14 1.06

Difference in perceived motivations between

serious & casual mappers

Hypothesis Development

Motivational Factors

H3: Local knowledge

H2: Altruism

H1: Project goal

H4: Learning

H5: Self need

H6: Show-off

H7: Monetary

H8: Mapping party

Node

Longevity

Frequency

Contribution

Contributory Pattern (Europe)

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

0 100 200 300 400 500 600

No.

of

Nod

es

No. of Days

Contributory Pattern (Africa)

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

0 20 40 60 80 100

No.

of N

odes

No. of Days

Contributory Pattern (Asia)

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

0 100 200 300 400

No.

of

Nod

es

No. of Days

Contributory Pattern (North America)

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

350000

400000

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

No.

of

Nod

es

No. of Days

Contributory Pattern (South America)

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

No.

of

Nod

es

No. of Days

Contributory pattern in OSM

Registered users

117,000

Mappers

33,452 (29%)

Non-mappers

83,548 (71%)

34

• 44% are one-timers

• 5% have contributed more than 10,000 nodes

• 0.6% have contributed more than 100,000 nodes

Source: www.openstreetmap.org , downloaded from http://downloads.cloudmade.com/(Accessed on April, 2009)

Continent level

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Africa Asia Europe North America

South America

Map

pers

(i

n %

)

One-time contributors >100 Node>1000 Node >10000 Node>100000 Node

Main hypotheses Sig value (Pillai’s

trace)

Sub-hypotheses Unstandardized

parameter estimates

Sig-value

H1: Project goal 0.030* Node (H1a) -0.615 0.012*

Longevity (H1b) -0.328 0.093

Frequency(H1c) -0.362 0.005*

H2: Altruism 0.080 Node (H2a) -0.440 0.049*

Longevity(H2b) -0.072 0.689

Frequency(H2c) -0.206 0.080

H3: Instrumentality

of local knowledge

0.000* Node(H3a) 2.011 0.000*

Longevity(H3b) 1.275 0.000*

Frequency(H3c) 1.038 0.000*

H4: Learning 0.877 Node(H4a) 0.054 0.794

Longevity(H4b) -0.064 0.697

Frequency(H4c) 0.001 0.995

H5: Self need 0.977 Node(H5a) 0.022 0.868

Longevity(H5b) -0.009 0.936

Frequency(H5c) 0.015 0.837

H6: Show off 0.454 Node(H6a) -0.263 0.180

Longevity(H6b) -0.215 0.171

Frequency(H6c) -0.105 0.311

H7: Monetary 0.724 Node(H7a) 0.097 0.593

Longevity(H7b) -0.033 0.822

Frequency(H7c) 0.046 0.633

H8: Mapping party 0.486 Node(H8a) 0.710 0.242

Longevity(H8b) 0.029 0.953

Frequency(H8c) 0.239 0.454

Hypothesis Testing

Motivations Sig. Value

Monetary 0.035*

Learning 0.922

Instrumentality of local knowledge 0.008*

Project Goal 0.574

Altruism 0.200

Show-off 0.110

Self need 0.625

Community importance 0.622

Identity 0.595

Self view 0.012*

Socio-political agenda 0.794

Serious mappers

7.3% 12.1%

75.6%

5%0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

It will increase my

contribution

I will decrease my

contribution

It will not affect my

contribution

I will stop

contributing

How will the involvement of commercial companies affect your contribution to the

project?

Summary and implications

• Instrumentality of Local knowledge as a

key motivator of contribution

• Representation of local area

• Accuracy of map

• Self efficacy

• Fun

• Those who have higher monetary

motivation, local knowledge, and self view are

likely to be serious mappers.

• Why cann’t those with other motivations can’t

make good contribution?

• Learning materials

• Ease of use of the system

• Social network

Summary and implications

Feel free to contact me for more information:

namabudhathoki@gmail.com

http://budhathoki.wordpress.com

Thanks for listening!