The Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUI Galway will host a workshop on OpenStreetMap this Saturday. The event, which is free to attend, will be of interest to community groups, environmentalists, science researchers, geographers, planners, students, and anyone with an interest in learning about and participating in open street mapping.
OpenStreetMap is a free, editable, map of the whole world that is being built by volunteers. The underlying electronic data is open-sourced and crowd-sourced.
Organised by Ireland’s OpenStreetMap (OSM ) community, this free event is open to all interested individuals and groups. The workshop will commence at 11am at the Insight Centre of the Data Science Institute in the IDA Dangan Business Park.
“This information and workshop event, taking place as part of our centre’s Citizen Science schedule, will provide a wonderful opportunity for both experts and novices to exchange ideas and experiences on this very important grassroots global initiative,” said Lukasz Porwol of the Insight Centre. “All over the world, there are restrictions on the availability or the use of map information. OSM aims to remedy this by generating a free, editable, map of the world.
“To date four million people have come together to contribute data to OSM,” he added. “These volunteers collect data using manual surveys, GPS devices, aerial photography, and other free sources. This crowdsourced data is then made available under the Open Database License.
“OpenStreetMap contributors have diverse interests and work at differing scales. Some people map their locality, while others work on themes such as public transport, the built environment, graveyards, tree cover, beaches, churches, sports grounds, greenways, energy infrastructures, and many other things.”
OSM Ireland is affiliated to the worldwide volunteer movement. The purpose of the Galway chapter is to promote contributions of mapped data and re-use of the data, both locally and globally.
The Galway event is the latest in a series of OSM activities being held around the country over the coming months.
Anybody who is interested in contributing or learning more should register as soon as possible on Eventbrite at https://bit.ly/31SFBkM. For more information contact Lukasz Porwol at [email protected].
