Humanitarian Mapathon at UD

#UDMapathon18

Wednesday, Nov 14th | 12:45PM – 3:00PM | Perkins Gallery

Welcome to the University of Delaware’s second annual Mapathon!

 

Welcome to the University of Delaware’s second annual Mapathon! We are excited to continue after a successful first event during Geo Week 2017.
Mapathons are our way of getting more people involved, promoting free and open data, and garnering excitement about mapping. It is a way of ‘flexing our muscle’, that is to show we can make a difference through our network of volunteers. Mapping is done with OpenStreetMap, a free and online mapping tool.

Projects are organized by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) using a tasking manager called the HOT Tasking Manager. In a project, the area is broken into small squares which a volunteer can choose to edit. Once the volunteer starts working on a square, the square is locked from editing by users in the tasking manager. This way, two people do not edit the same area and overwrite each other’s work.

While OpenStreetMap (OSM) can be used to add data to maps worldwide, this Mapathon will focus on one specific project – mapping an area on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda border. The goal of this project is to outline residential areas (more than 5 houses) and map individual buildings (5 or less houses). This is the first stage of mapping for this project. Mapping this area will benefit aid for Ebola by helping humanitarian aid teams navigate the area and identify communities.

From the project website: “The evolving Ebola situation in the DRC makes it extremely urgent to map all tracks, pathways, health facilities and other infrastructure in towns and villages serving the borders. There is a severe lack of up-to-date and detailed maps of this area available to those involved in the fight to contain the outbreak. Please work with those of us on the ground to collect this life-saving information by remotely tracing borderland infrastructure.”

In this reference guide, you will find information on how to use OSM to map roads and buildings
properly.

The project we are working on is #5209 – Ebola 2018, DRC/Kasese District Border Mapping. Please read the directions carefully. See the next page for a guide.