This guest post by Mary Leverance, Preservation, Conservation, and Teaching Coordinator for the University Libraries and Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, is second a series of four addressing open access and geospatial data. Look for third close to GIS Day, November 16, 2016.
Human sensors all over the globe produce volunteered geographic information (VGI) that can be recorded at any time, any place, and by any number of people. Our smartphones and GPS-enabled devices can geotag our media and share geospatial information. We’ve become more accustomed to freely distributing this type of information with others across social media networks, and maybe even contributing to open access data repositories or to a citizen science data collection.
But what motivates people to volunteer any form of geographic information? And are some motivators stronger than others? Reasons for VGI contributions range from constructive to harmful. The ability to do good from a remote location or from the midst of a terrible situation appeals to a desire to help those in need. Self-satisfaction, self-expression, and self–promotion are motivators because people are interested in their own feelings of pride and well-being. Interest in a given profession, or activities outside of the professional realm (e.g., citizen science as a hobby), are intellectual and social motivators. The negative motivators are unfortunate, but can’t be overlooked.
Altruism and self-satisfaction are the most common motivators behind VGI. In the event of a natural disaster requiring major emergency response (like the earthquakes in Nepal and Haiti in 2015 and 2010 respectively), websites like OpenStreetMap (OSM) used social media to call for people to help create missing map information so the people and buildings impacted by the earthquakes could be identified and tracked with geographic data, and also receive attention from first responders.
| Motivator | Example |
|---|---|
| Altruism | Following a natural disaster in an undeveloped country, add street data to OpenStreetMap so emergency responders know where passable roads are located |
| Self-satisfaction | “I was the first to Tweet about this new restaurant location” or “I geotagged all photos from a set the Library of Congress uploaded to Flickr” |
| Professional or personal interest | A citizen science volunteer is devoted to actively contributing to observations or analysis for the benefit of research |
| Outlet for self-expression | Ability to reach a large audience by Tweeting or “checking in” to a location through Facebook |
| Self-promotion | Volunteer may want attention, or may want to promote a business or service |
| Intellectual stimulation | Improve technical skills by contributing on many VGI platforms |
| Social reward | As part of a virtual community, volunteer wants to contribute information to keep a good standing within the community |
| Impact society | Volunteer knows that information contributed to a database will impact people in a positive way, perhaps through research discoveries or responses to natural disasters |
| Pride of place | Volunteer maintains information on local area, corrects any local errors to geotags |
| Agenda | Volunteer makes biased or incorrect modifications to a Google Map business location to direct interest of others to their business |
| Mischief/criminal intent | Generating confusion or skepticism, or malicious intent for personal gain by lying or sharing misleading information |
Rupa Tiwari’s 2010 survey of volunteers of the real-world VGI projects GISCorps and OpenStreetMap revealed the motivator rankings of these particular volunteers (Volunteered geography: Motivations of volunteers). The top four motivators for both projects’ volunteers were altruism, personal satisfaction, to gain and improvise geospatial knowledge, and to increase understanding on the matter. GISCorps volunteers ranked them in the order listed; OSM volunteers put personal satisfaction ahead of altruism.
Another finding from the survey was that 60% of volunteers have been contributing geographic information for one year or longer. This finding may show that the motivators listed are enough to keep someone contributing; for these volunteers, there does not appear to be a need for incentives along the way. The visual appeal of maps and ability to share local knowledge are motivators that don’t lessen over time. Next up: a post taking a deeper look into the motivators of visual appeal and sharing local knowledge.