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This chapter provides a brief explanation and importance of organizing a humanitarian event "Mapathon". It is a modern digital form of volunteering that is accessible to everyone, regardless of age. Through the organizing of Mapathon event, we can improve the quality of the world's data on maps, as well as meet people from around the world and exchange knowledge. We think it is important to spread awareness about this form of volunteering, so that even more people can get involved. In this case, we have prepared a detailed step-by-step manual that will explain how to organize Mapathon and how to map on the TeachOSM humanitarian platform using the iD editor. This step-by-step manual is supplement by instruction images taken from task #1148 Mapping Tartus created by the student community PoliMappers from Politecnico di Milano.
Mapathon event, well known as a "mapping marathon" is a modern digital form of volunteering. It is an event, which is accessible to everyone, regardless of age. All what participants need to have is a computer device with a mouse, an internet connection, created account on OpenStreetMap and a willingness to help.
The mapathons used to be usually face-to-face meetings, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation were completely all sessions taken to online space. After the COVID-19 pandemic people realized that it is great to organize mapathons in both ways, face-to-face and online at the same time. The reason is that people from around the world could also get an opportunity to join (Fig. 1).
The main aim of mapathon is to map buildings, roads, waterways etc. in areas that are blank on maps or areas that have been damaged by natural disasters (e.g hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes) or pandemics. For the purpose of mapping is used the Tasking Manager platform, such as HOT OSM, or Teach OSM).
We will work with the Teach OSM humanitarian platform. The projects ready for mapping are divided on this platform into smaller tasks that can be collaboratively completed by various people at the same time (Fig. 2). In this way, mapathon participants are helping, for example, international humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross or the Doctors without borders to deliver healthcare or other services to these areas and give assistance to people in need. Besides that, all created changesets and improvements in maps made by volunteers during mapathons help to remote areas in the world with development of disaster risk management and energy management. The brand-new data become open and it means that everyone can use them.
Organizing events of this kind helps to build a stronger community of mappers in the whole world. We would like to mention as an example the global student network YouthMappers created in 2016 in the USA (Fig. 3). This organization already succeeded in building a stronger community of mappers from universities. They currently have more than 5 000 members from 72 countries.
The members of YouthMappers community are also European universities, for example University of Prešov as UNIPO Mappers, Politecnico di Milano as PoliMappers (Fig. 4, 5). It is important to mention that OpenStreetMap currently has more than 8 million contributors. It is a great number, but on the other hand, it is still not enough when we imagine the planet Earth with 7 billion inhabitants. Joining or hosting a mapathon is a fantastic way to meet people of many nationalities from other countries, share ideas, get some more experiences and learn something new.
Creating an OpenStreetMap account is simple and straightforward. Follow these step-by-step instructions to set up your account:
Visit the OpenStreetMap website: Go to the OpenStreetMap homepage at https://www.openstreetmap.org/.
Click "Sign Up": Locate the "Sign Up" button in the upper right corner of the page and click on it.
Fill out the registration form: You will be directed to the registration page, where you will need to provide some basic information:
a. Display Name: Choose a display name that will be visible to other users on the OSM platform. b. Email: Enter a valid email address. This will be used for account verification and password recovery. c. Password: Create a secure password for your account. Make sure it's a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols for enhanced security.
Click "Sign Up": After completing the form and CAPTCHA, click the "Sign Up" button at the bottom of the registration page to submit your information.
Verify your email address: OSM will send you a verification email to the address you provided. Open the email and click on the verification link to confirm your account. If you don't see the email in your inbox, check your spam or junk folder.
Start contributing: Once you have verified your email address, you can now log in to your OpenStreetMap account using your display name and password. Begin exploring the platform, editing maps, and contributing to the OSM community.
Remember to keep your account information secure and never share your password with anyone. Happy mapping!
Here is a step-by-step guide to using the TeachOSM Tasking Manager:
Go to the .
Click on the „Log in“ button in right corner (Fig. 7)
Use your already created account from OpenStreetMap and please authorize access to your account by pressing button „Grant Access“ (Fig. 8)
After logging in you’ll see the same interface as in (Fig. 9). Let’s explore together the website TeachOSM.
In this section you will find tasks and projects available for mapping (Fig. 10)
you can sort tasks and project according four criteria:
a) difficulty level - beginner mapper, intermediate mapper, advanced mapper
b) project status - projects to map, projects to validate, any project
c) more filters - you can sort projects according:
o campaign
o organization
o location
o type of mapping
d) sort by - urgent, active, new, old, beginner and advanced projects
e) search project - when you are looking for a specific project and you know its number, you can do it quickly by using search engine (Fig. 11)
We’ll work together on the task Mapping Tartus with number #1148 !
this section provides statistics about your mapping activity such as (Fig. 12):
number of buildings, roads, waterways and points of interests you mapped
overall number of hours you spent mapping
detailed contribution timeline
projects and tasks you worked on
what top 5 countries you already mapped
this section provides quick instructions how to map, how to validate data and how to organize mapping events like mapathon (Fig. 13). We will show you how to map more in deep in the next part.
In this section you will find some more information about Tasking Manager (Fig. 14)
Welcome to the Mapathon Workshop, where we will introduce you to the exciting world of community mapping!
In this workshop, we will explore the power of open source mapping tools and how they can be used to support humanitarian efforts around the world. We will begin by setting up an OpenStreetMap account, which is a free and open mapping platform that allows anyone to contribute to mapping projects. We will then take a walk around the humanitarian mapping platform, TeachOSM, which is a comprehensive resource for learning about mapping for social good. Next, we will dive into the process of mapping a task, which involves identifying a specific area or issue that needs to be mapped and working together to create a detailed map of that area. You will learn how to use OpenStreetMap's editing tools and how to collaborate with others to ensure accuracy and completeness in your mapping efforts.
By the end of this workshop, you will have the skills and knowledge to contribute to mapping projects and make a positive impact in the world. So let's get started!
Finally, it is time to map your first task. As mentioned before, we will work with the project Mapping Tartus #1148. Tartus is the second largest port city of Syria, located on the Mediterranean coast. The project is aimed to map the buildings of the port city Tartus in such a way to help humanitarian activities of the World Food Program (WFP) in that area.
it includes essential information about the project and mapped area
when you get familiar with the task click „Contribute“ (Fig. 15)
understanding all instructions is crucial for correct project contribution
in instructions you will find following information (Fig. 16):
what you should map (eg. buildings)
what imaginery you should use (eg. MAXAR Premium Imaginery)
what tags you should add after mapping a feature (eg. #poliMi_WFP_Tartus)
what you should pay attention for (eg. follow accurately the footprint of the building)
in the section „TASKS“ you can check the latest contributors of Mapping Tartus #1148
under the section „CONTRIBUTIONS“ you can see number of changes made by different contributors (Fig. 17)
the project Mapping Tartus #1148 is aimed to map buildings (Fig. 18)
mostly in some available advanced tasks you can meet with mapping other features:
roads, waterways, landuse or more (Fig. 19)
here you can see the tiles that are being mapped at this project
select one of white tiles, which are available for mapping
then click “Map selected task” (Fig. 20)
you can also map a random task. In that case you don’t need to select a tile. Just click “Map a task” and you will be assigned with a random tile which you can map.
For your first mapping with iD editor it is very useful to complete the provided Walkthrough (Fig. 21). The walkthrough will explain how to navigate around the map, how to zoom in and out and how to mark points, areas, lines and building into the map. When you are familiar with mapping these features, you are ready to move on to mapping the real objects. Click “Start Editing”.
First of all, it is very important to set the imaginery according to previous instructions. In this case, we need to set imaginery for “Maxar Premium Imagery” (Fig. 22).
You are ready to map! Zoom in so you can see the features clearly.
Click to “Area” to start mapping the buildings.
Start by clicking on the corner of the building and continue to mark other corners. By clicking on the last corner again you can finish the process. Walls of the building will be red (Fig. 23).
Now it’s important to select a feature type. This window will pop-up automatically after marking the building (Fig. 24):
choose “Building” as a feature type
After selecting the feature type you can square the corners of the feature by pressing “Q” on your keyboard (Fig. 25). All other useful shortcuts are visible after clicking on the map with right-click (Fig. 26).
That’s it! After finishing the mapping you can save your changes and upload them to OpenStreetMap (Fig. 27).
Click „Save“ - the window with Changeset Comment and Hashtag will pop-up (Fig. 28)
At the bottom (Fig. 29), there is an option of reviewing the edits. If you are unsure with your edits, check the box and let someone more experienced check your work. Click “Upload” and your changes will be added to OpenStreetMap.
After finishing your mapping session it is important to mark the stage of the task:
if you mapped the task completely, check “Yes”
if there are still some buildings left, or you are not sure, check “No”
if you can not identify the buildings because of poor imaginery, check “The imagery is bad” (Fig. 30)
There is also a possibility of writing a comment about the task. If the task is too big and contains too much features, there is an option to split it and share with other participants by clicking „Split task“ (Fig. 31).
