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10 Years of OSM in the Classroom

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10 Years of OSM in the Classroom
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26
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A Mapping USA (Spring 2021) presentation by Richard Hinton. More information about Mapping USA: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Events/Mapping_USA Learn more and support OpenStreetMap US at https://www.openstreetmap.us/.
Storage area networkEvent horizonWage labourSocial classNumberStudent's t-testSelf-organizationReliefCASE <Informatik>QuicksortSoftwareComputing platformLevel (video gaming)Profil (magazine)Arithmetic progressionPattern recognitionProjective planeConnected spaceComputer-assisted translationPresentation of a groupMappingResource allocationContext awarenessCuboidLine (geometry)Different (Kate Ryan album)AreaChainSet (mathematics)Open setTask (computing)ResultantChannel capacityDigitizingCartesian coordinate systemMobile WebUniverse (mathematics)Cellular automatonRow (database)Multiplication signProcess (computing)MereologyForm (programming)Slide ruleComputer programmingBitGoodness of fitBasis <Mathematik>WhiteboardTable (information)Content (media)Repository (publishing)Instance (computer science)Computer animation
Open setLabour Party (Malta)GradientStudent's t-testTask (computing)Traffic reportingOpen setLevel (video gaming)Task (computing)Connected spaceComputer-assisted translationStudent's t-testQuicksortProfil (magazine)Pattern recognitionCASE <Informatik>MappingSocial classNumberMultiplication signEvent horizonBitForm (programming)DigitizingCartesian coordinate systemCellular automatonProcess (computing)Arithmetic progressionProjective planeWage labourMereologySlide ruleAreaSoftwareComputing platformResource allocationComputer animation
WordElectronic mailing listNatural numberInformationStudent's t-testQuicksortCuboidLine (geometry)Student's t-testSelf-organizationDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Channel capacityWhiteboardBasis <Mathematik>Table (information)Repository (publishing)Content (media)Universe (mathematics)Instance (computer science)SoftwareContext awarenessMathematicsSet (mathematics)NumberComputer programmingGoodness of fitAreaSphereResultantMereologyMappingComputer animation
Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
Hi, everybody. My name is Richard Hinton and I am with the Department of Geography at the George Washington University. And OSM was first introduced to our GIS curriculum by my colleague Dr. Nuala Cowan just before I joined the department in 2012, early 2012.
And in 2013, at the conference in San Francisco, we presented on the work we've been doing over the last couple of years with OSM as part of our GIS curriculum. And this was the first slide that we used in that presentation. So I thought, let's bring it back, let's toss it off and bring it back again, because I think Dr. Seuss was sort of ahead of his
time and perhaps providing a bit of foreshadowing with showing the cat in the hat with a map on his lap. Because of course, nowadays, we all have maps in our lap in the form of digital maps in our devices. And if you're like me, you have many applications on your device, on your mobile device, that have mapping capabilities or have maps associated
with them. A lot of those applications actually have their digital map data informed by our pull directly from OSM. So there is a definite connection and the cat in the hat, I think, was right to have a map on his lap. So we originally sort of got started with OSM because we saw it as a great tool to not
only teach geography, but have our students engage with geography and geospatial data in a very intimate and very engaging, very real way. So this was shortly after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. So the profile and a recognition of OSM had been growing. The community was growing. Its use case is how people were adapting it and using it was growing. So we wanted to make sure we sort of got in with this and were involved
with it relatively early on. It also allowed us to approach the concept of open or bring the concept of open data, open geospatial software into our curriculum a little more thoroughly. And OSM was a great platform to do that.
Our first couple of mapping events were very much labor intensive. This is before ID. So when Nuala introduced us to our first couple of classes, it was with the intermediate GIS class of students who had some knowledge of GIS and geospatial skills as it were. But we still had to identify an area.
And then we had to find a way to divide it up and give it to the students and allocate students certain tasks to actually work on. And then students, we trained them in JAWSOM because ID hadn't been created yet, would use JAWSOM and go back and forth between different platforms to identify the area they were mapping and then negotiate where their cell ended in the next one
started. And it was very much sort of a manual process. So we created these posters that as a student would finish tracing a particular area, they would put a little sticker, a little dot sticker on the map and then would show the progress of the actual project for the entire class and the others actually using the lab as well. So that worked out pretty well, but still very
labor intensive. This was that mapping event we used for that particular project, actually. Again, just the one intermediate GIS class and lots and lots of pizza. Now, of course, we're actually using ID, and because we're using ID, we actually introduced OSM at the intro level. And instead of having one intermediate class, we have three intro classes every single
semester. So we've more than tripled the number of students we introduced to OSM each semester. Of course, our mapping events have gotten much larger. And of course, that also means our pizza budget has gone up significantly. Over the years, we've had the pleasure to work with a number of great agencies and organizations that work in the DC area and in the humanitarian
sphere. And we've also had the pleasure and are very thankful for that when we do partner with a particular agency on disaster preparedness, on disease prevention, on disaster relief, whatnot. More often than not, one of the members, perhaps more than
a member, more than one of the members of that particular agency will come and talk to our students. And that really helps with engaging the students and giving them context as to what it is they're doing. And that really sort of adds some gravity so that they understand, OK, it's not just
boxes and lines and drawing on some foreign land. Those data will actually be used and this is how they'll be used and how they'll have an impact. So it really resonates with students a lot. We're very thankful to be able to work with all these organizations in different capacities. OK, so over the last 10 years, we've been able to do a bunch of
things about what really are the results or the consequences, impacts of actually having OSM as part of our curriculum. Well, we've been able to introduce and train over 1400 students in OSM. Our students have created over 85000 change sets and over seven million edits. The Humanitarian Mapping Society at GW, HMS GW, is a student led organization
that was formed from students that came to our program and they wanted to do this mapathon thing for humanitarian good on a more regular basis. So since about 2014, I believe when they formed 2013, perhaps they've been hosting mapathons on campus every single semester and engaging the GW community and the Washington community at large whenever they're able to be able to come on board.
I'm out of time, so I'm going to go very quickly. Teach OSM, the Teach OSM was stood up at our conference table. Four of us sat around our table and literally put content to a GitHub repository and then stood up the first instance of Teach OSM. And then last but not least, Youth Mappers.
You'll hear more about Youth Mappers later on from Dara and Sophia. But very briefly, GW is one of the founding universities of this network of university chapters and HMS GW, our student mapping organization, actually was a founding chapter of this organization. In fact, with the blueprint of what a Youth Mappers chapter is today.
So I'm out of time, so thank you very much for your attention and hope you enjoy the rest of the talks today. Bye.