Participatory mapping strategies empower the public to voluntarily serve as creators of spatial data. In this way, the on-the-ground knowledge of people can be harnessed to create spatial datasets that would be prohibitively difficult to develop using traditional means. Datasets that are created using these methods are referred to as "Volunteered Geographic Information" (VGI). This course will cover various ways to involve large groups of people in the collection of VGI, participatory sensing, crowdsourcing, and citizen science. An introduction to some of the major current issues and techniques for these approaches will be discussed including: assessing credibility, guided versus unguided submissions, known versus unknown users, fusion of authoritative and contributed information, passive and active contributions, motivation? and engagement considerations. Strategies for developing web-based environments for read/write public interaction with maps will be discussed. Successful applications of participatory mapping will be presented as examples.

This short course is being presented in collaboration with Virginia Tech Geospatial Information Sciences. http://www.gis.vt.edu/
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Location:	3080 Torgersen
Price:	Free
Sponsor:	Faculty Development Institute
Contact:	Ed Schwartz ed.schwartz@vt.edu (540) 231-4975
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