Showcases

[TylerRadford]

From Jorieke:

Already for a little time I'm trying to collect humanitarian maps made with OpenStreetMap. With the idea to show them once on a presentation or something...

A few examples you can find back in this dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k2825lerby28j5n/AADnbarv-36UJ44peyUVR5Qsa?dl=0

But now I was thinking maybe we can create a kind of portfolio on our website with all these humanitarian maps using OSM? To show to the mappers what they are doing, but also to show to other humanitarian organisations what they all can do with the data, and to show who all is using OSM data.

[xamanu]

This is great! I think this is related to this issue #65. Maybe this would be just a more lightweight approach.to call it "showcases". But both issues want to present real results of maps and collaborations...

[frankagrubisic]

another idea is that maybe we could also include (some of) the stories - about held workshops and their purposes etc.? I think it would have a nice humanly touch, as well as the maps of course, each in its own way. With good design, it could be beautiful and rather effective - everyone feels inspired after a good story and often are encouraged to do something similar themselves.

[xamanu]

I know it is quite some time. But, @TylerRadford the dropbox link is dead. Can you please provide a source again? Thank you!

[xamanu]

We are now collecting examples here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XwNa2Sr0zS3hEzxBmrWaHLDOcWXR0dgfMaPOCVOZ6Jw/edit Please help out!

[KatjaUlbert]

close issue?

[xamanu]

I think this is something really nice and missing on the website. The other issues #96 and #65 could be combinded into one "Showcase" section. So, I'm going to close the othe issues and we can continue here to create such a section.

[grinapo]

I was pulled here from #65 and I'm not quite satisfied (apart from the obviously sad fact that this is indeed a closed ticket).

I am glad that there are showcases of the resulted maps, but this is absolutely not something I was missing in #65; my problem (or rather the problem of the people who is asked about "who does use the results and why, if anyone?") is that there is a very low amount of actual documentation about who used these results on the field, how have they used and what for.

We are being asked to spend time and resources on making maps, but there is hardly ever any feedback about how and when were these maps used, what was great in them, what were the problems with using it, what should we do next time differently, what was useless in the view of the HOT efforts.

I mean, there is a big difference between asking me to help creating a map somewhere just because the area isn't covered (like when I was mapping rivers in Siberia, vast lands with not a single node around, but nobody really care or use it, it's just for fun) or because there are actual people requiring this actual result to do actual work.

So, if you want to keep this discussion here instead of #65 then be it: please apart from result showcases ask the organisations who use these results to report about hows and wheres and whats and whatnots. We give results, they give reports, for our work. We need to know what we work for.

You should kow that I'm Hungarian: here around there are plenty of projects where hundred millions of usd (equivalent) tax money is being spent on projects creating useless results to real demands, and the results of these projects are real, except nobody use them (either they don't need it or they don't need that or they do need it but what they got is not usable for them) and they get in a drawer somewhere, for ever.

_This should be a HOT policy, if it doesn't work any else way: we give you maps, you have to give us actual reports about their usage._

Thanks!

[xamanu]

@grinapo I deeply agree, and you don't have to be sad. This is just merged into one place of discussion. And I hope we can tackle this here as well.

[xamanu]

ok. I will try to summarize, which hopefully gets us to a common base of discussion:

• Showcases are items in "news" but with a special tag
• Showcases are associated to projects (and maybe partners?)
• Showcases are shown under projects, but separated from news.

[xamanu]

Showcases can be created on the website now: https://hotosm.org/node/add/showcase There is also a very basic and raw view about showcase content on the website: https://hotosm.org/showcases

Please add some, so we have content and I can work on getting this integrated into the website. Thanks!

[grinapo]

I would like to have a clear distinction between showcasing the results of a HOT effort and the use of the results. Both is important but serves two completely different purposes.

And of course "requiring" a use report (in exchange for the data we provide) is a policy (or communication) question.

(I'm not on the team, I'm rather using the HOT content to spread the word.)

[xamanu]

This should be exactly the main difference between:

• showcases (use of the map data to create a real and tangible outcome, no matter if HOT itself or others are doing it)
• and news items, (results of an HOT effort, statistics, etc.)

[grinapo]

Showcase entry: http://confidencial.com.ni/the-true-geographers-take-the-buses/

[xamanu]

@grinapo This is already one of the (only) two showcases we have: https://hotosm.org/showcases

I just wrote am email to the HOT mailing list to ask more people to contribute with showcases. Let's hope we get more valuable input on this.