Other Validation Tools

Normally, the same editor is used for validation as for mapping, but it is of course also possible to use more refined editors such as JOSM (JavaOpenStreetMap). This is a non-online editor, so you need to download the data locally, and it is a refined editor because it has the structure of a GIS capable of handling layers of data (https://josm.openstreetmap.de/).

Another useful tool is OSMCHA (OpenStreetMap Changeset Analyser), a web tool to help visualize and analyze edits made by mappers. OSMCHA allows detailed views of individual user operations and is very effective on organized projects (https://osmcha.org/). In this case the process is the so-called a ‘Stage 2’ validation, related to town or city scale, covering the full area of the project (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8: OSMCha is a useful tool for assessing the quality of changes made by many users and correcting any errors.

Finally, also of note is OSMOSE, which is used for automatic error detection on large datasets. (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osmose).

In OpenStreetmap Wiki (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tasking_Manager/Validating_data) the instructions step by step, for different categories, are reported, including the hints for the messages accompanying the validation operation.

As mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph, the final map must be correct in order to be used, so, especially in humanitarian projects, during validation errors must be detected and corrected. However, it is necessary to emphasize that, for a teaching purpose, during validation more than correcting one should push the mappers to correct themselves so that they become aware of the overall work.