How realistic is open collaboration for development? Can it really work through the social web? CrisisCommons and OpenStreetMaps are good examples: volunteers worldwide combined forces for humanitarian relief.
Communities for open source aid
Many initiatives seek open collaboration and build on the expertise of people in volunteering through the Internet. Some, such as the Extraordinaries, have used crowdsourcing, to identify people through images after the Haiti earthquake. Others, such as CrisisCommons, have built networks of people to provide technological solutions for disaster relief.
“Founded in March 2009 through an impromptu Tweetup at Government 2.0 Camp, a small group of idealists and innovators gathered to discuss the idea of creating an online community through a mash-up of citizen volunteers, crisis response organisations, international humanitarian relief agencies, non-profits and the private sector”; CrisisCommons was born.
One outcome of this initiative has been CrisisCamps, where programmers, GIS specialists and people from various places around the world with all kinds of expertise come together to “cultivate innovation in the use of technology for mobility and efficiency during crisis.” One example is the CrisisCamp held in London on 15 May:
“The day will be dedicated to working on CrisisCommons projects, hoping to make life easier for people on the ground by doing what we can do from here. Common tasks are programming, working on maps, and helping to gather information from around the web into usable forms”. Between these camps the coordination and collaboration takes place within various groups.
A related initiative Crisismappers, a community of mappers that tries to provide support during crises using geospatial information: “Leveraging mobile platforms, computational linguistics, geospatial technologies, and visual analytics to power effective early warning for rapid response to complex humanitarian emergencies.”
The case of Haiti
One of the biggest problems in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake has been the lack of information about what was happening in different places and of accurate maps providing an overview of the scale and extent of the destruction. One volunteer working group known as the “Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team”, attempted to compile a digital map of Port au Prince. In a concerted effort, mappers used satellite imagery to map over 30.000 locations. This resulted, thanks to the contribution of different organisations and companies,in the most detailed map of Port Prince after the disaster. The video below provides an overview on how the map evolved throughout the crisis period.
There were also nine CrisisCamps on three continents addressing the Haiti case . The outcomes were different tools and a widespread volunteer collaboration. CrisisCommons continues to work on diverse initiatives such as a machine translation mechanism for English and Haitian Creole or Haitian Stories.
Implications for web2fordev
The most striking facets in these examples are that such communities could coalesce with most people not knowing each other and that the voluntary efforts led to impressive results which are still ongoing, as in the case of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. These different initiatives show how the open source approach can be adapted to a range of situations across the Globe. This can be an inspiring example for development cooperation sector. Everybody is free to join CrisisCommons.
Author: Christian Kreutz (in collaboration with the CTA ICT Innovation team)
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written by Jan Goossenaerts, July 18, 2010
The question on impact is key though.
In my opinion a necessary condition (not a sufficient one), to get more impact with social web is to stop publishing "individually authored" grey literature, and move all content to structured, shared wikis for all stakeholders to contribute, apply, give feedback and evolve. There is some explanation & prototype demonstration accessible from http://www.pragmetaknowledgeclout.be/systematized , a concrete case could be a city consultation wiki, as indicated at http://www.atria.us/content/city-consultation
It is key to leverage content that already is available by codifying it as content commons, alongside concrete - social web enabled - use of such content.
My current focus is at: http://un-gaid.ning.com/group/...hroughplan
(... we need crisis commons globally?)
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written by Paul C, June 10, 2010
p.s. "Too often those with a technical background seem to think delivery of the artefact is the summit of the mountain" - I could not agree more if you paid me to do so.
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written by Richard Heeks, June 09, 2010
That indicates that what the comments are largely pointing to is implementation processes; delivery of artefacts; possibly to adoption of those artefacts. But we're still not getting to outputs or outcomes let alone broader developments impacts (the right side of the value chain).
Of course to do a full, independent and wide-scale IA would need IDRC or InfoDev or DFID or similar to step up to the plate and fund this. No doubt that will happen some time but I wish they could do that sooner rather than later.
Within projects themselves, though - and it looks like this may be starting to happen for the Haiti applications - one needs a team to be not just focused on the technology but also engaged with the impact part of the value chain. Too often those with a technical background seem to think delivery of the artefact is the summit of the mountain.
Maybe there is an analogy there with our ICT4D Masters at MANCHESTER (??Lancaster??) - we focus not on inputs or deliverables but on outputs: development of new skills and knowledge. We have a whole set of activities geared to then measuring those outputs. As with disaster relief we don't measure the counterfactuals (what would have happened in the absence of our intervention); nor do we measure before and after to demonstrate value added. But we can at least show some (independently-verified) impact-related evidence.
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written by Paul C, June 07, 2010
The best way to measure the impact of technology initiatives is by proxy - whether those projects are being used, hopefully by beneficiaries but more likely by aid organisations, and whether they're being used effectively. The answer to the first question is generally yes, the answer to the second generally no.
Personally I think the sort of mapping we've seen in Haiti will have a long term impact, but I'm well aware that this is an act of faith on my part.
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written by Mikel Maron, June 07, 2010
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ WikiProject_Haiti#Uses_of_OpenStreetMap_data_by_crisis_
responders
You can also get a sense of our current, on the ground work in Haiti at
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Haiti_Strategy_And_Proposal
and
http://hot.openstreetmap.org/
-Mikel
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written by pete cranston, June 07, 2010
In the crowdsourcing case, for example, all of the participants will have been connecting to their networks, which means that the story both of their work and the reason they were doing it will have rippled out online far beyond the immediate group. Again, the maps are available from now onwards, with a likely volunteer maintenance team, for open, public use - something that is not always the case with the heavy tech that agencies import for crisis response.
But I am really interested in how the IA question can be addressed, especially in crisis response, where baseline studies are difficult to get hold of. What kind of approach did you have in mind, Richard?
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written by pete cranston, June 07, 2010
In the same way isn't there a case that these kind of crowdsourced initiatives have a wider, not inconsiderable, indirect impact than the immediate one on the ground? For example, the people engaged all talk and connect to their own personal networks, which ripples on through the online media. The maps themselves are open for public use long after the immediate emergency response - sometimes not the case for the heavy tech that the agencies bring for emergency relief.
But I do agree there is a need for more robust IA in this newer end of ICT4D (actually, all ICT4D). But given Christian was writing about disaster relief, where meaningful baseline studies might be hard to get, what kind of approach have you in mind, Richard?
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written by Joitske Hulsebosch, June 07, 2010
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written by Christian Kreutz, June 07, 2010
Different to traditional development organizations these initiatives practice a type of open collaboration the former are years behind. Particular the above mentioned initiatives clearly have proved what is possible through open collaboration. That is a major jump forward. In this case it is obvious to me, that such a detailed map supports humanitarian relief workers on the ground to do a better job. Lastly I find it very difficult to try to measure the impact of a digital map that "one more life was saved". An impact is reached on decision makers or search troops to have a better transparency, which then might result in saving more lives.
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written by Richard Heeks, June 06, 2010
But what matters is development impact.
Where is the independent evidence that one more life was saved, one more livelihood was created, one more beach was cleaned than would have happened anyway?
Working on the broader field of Development 2.0 is such a frustrating experience due to the lack of such evidence at present. Hack through the coverings of naive techno-centrism, hype, public relations and profile-raising press releases, and for the vast majority of these innovations, there is nothing yet there at the heart - we need the lens of impact assessment, even quick and dirty IA, to be turned towards these projects.
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