Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Data Analytics in Digital Humanities pp 217–230Cite as

A Case Study of Crowdsourcing Imagery Coding in Natural Disasters

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Multimedia Systems and Applications ((MMSA))

Abstract

Crowdsourcing and open licensing allow more people to participate in research and humanitarian activities. Open data, such as geographic information shared through OpenStreetMap and image datasets from disasters, can be useful for disaster response and recovery work. This chapter shares a real-world case study of humanitarian-driven imagery analysis, using open-source crowdsourcing technology. Shared philosophies in open technologies and digital humanities, including remixing and the wisdom of the crowd, are reflected in this case study.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Example from the project.json file available at: https://github.com/geotagx/geotagx-project-yamuna-floodwaters-2013/.

  2. 2.

    Example from the project.json file available at: https://github.com/geotagx/geotagx-project-somalia-crop-identification/.

References

  • D.M. Berry, The computational turn: thinking about the digital humanities. Cult. Mach. 12, 2 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  • N. Bharosa, J. Lee, M. Janssen, Challenges and obstacles in sharing and coordinating information during multi-agency disaster response: propositions from field exercises. Inf. Syst. Front. 12(1), 49–65 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • M. Bishr, W. Kuhn, Geospatial Information Bottom-Up: A Matter of Trust and Semantics (The European Information Society, Springer, Berlin, 2007), pp. 365–387

    Google Scholar 

  • R.M. Borromeo, M. Toyama, Automatic vs. crowdsourced sentiment analysis, in Proceedings of the 19th International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium, July 2015, ACM, pp. 90–95

    Google Scholar 

  • R.M. Borromeo, T. Laurent, M. Toyama, The influence of crowd type and task complexity on crowdsourced work quality, in Proceedings of the 20th International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium, July, 2016, ACM, pp. 70–76

    Google Scholar 

  • L. Bromley, UNOSAT, open data, and the crowd. Proceedings of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). 4 April 2012. Accessed online 21/10/2016 at:https://s3.amazonaws.com/webapps.esri.com/esri-proceedings/unic12/papers/unosat_open_data_and_the_crowd.pdf

  • E. Cervigni, C. Smith, Learning modules on media interpretation and disaster response data generation. Report. Deliverable 4.4 in EU Citizen Cyberlab: Technology Enhanced Creative Learning in the field of Citizen Cyberscience: http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/106216_en.html (2014)

  • C. Cobb, T. McCarthy, A. Perkins, A. Bharadwaj, J. Comis, B. Do, K. Starbird, Designing for the deluge: understanding and supporting the distributed, collaborative work of crisis volunteers, in Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, February, 2014, ACM, pp. 888–899

    Google Scholar 

  • L.K. Comfort, K. Ko, A. Zagorecki, Coordination in rapidly evolving disaster response systems the role of information. Am. Behav. Sci. 48(3), 295–313 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • E. Dawson, Non-participation in public engagement with science: a study of four socioeconomically disadvantaged, minority ethnic groups, Doctoral dissertation, King's College London, 2012

    Google Scholar 

  • E. Dawson, Reframing social exclusion from science communication: moving away from ‘barriers’ towards a more complex perspective. JCOM 13(02), C02 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  • A. Felstiner, Working the crowd: employment and labor law in the crowdsourcing industry. Berkeley J. Emp. Lab. L. 32, 143–569 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  • M.A. Finkelstein, M.T. Brannick, Applying theories of institutional helping to informal volunteering: motives, role identity, and prosocial personality. Soc. Behav. Personal. Int. J. 35(1), 101–114 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • A. Gupta, H. Lamba, P. Kumaraguru, A. Joshi, Faking Sandy: characterizing and identifying fake images on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy, in Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web Companion, May 2013, International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee, pp. 729–736

    Google Scholar 

  • C. Jennet, A.L. Cox, Report. Deliverable 6.1 evaluating the design of citizen Cyberlab pilot projects and platforms in EU Citizen Cyberlab: technology enhanced creative learning in the field of citizen cyberscience: http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/106216_en.html (2014)

  • N. Kapucu, Interagency communication networks during emergencies: boundary spanners in multiagency coordination. Am. Rev. Public Admin. 36(2), 207–225 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D. King, Humanitarian knowledge management, in Proceedings of the Second International ISCRAM Conference, Brussels, Belgium, 2005, vol. 1, pp. 1–6

    Google Scholar 

  • S. Lowe, A. Fothergill, in Beyond September 11th: An Account of Post-Disaster Research, ed. by M. F. Myers. A need to help: emergent volunteer behavior after September 11th (Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 2003), pp. 293–314

    Google Scholar 

  • G.R. Madey, G. Szabo, A.L. Barabási, in Computational Science–ICCS 2006. WIPER: the integrated wireless phone based emergency response system (Springer, Berlin, 2006), pp. 417–424

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • L. Palen, K.M. Anderson, G. Mark, J. Martin, D. Sicker, M. Palmer, D. Grunwald, A vision for technology-mediated support for public participation & assistance in mass emergencies and disasters, in Proceedings of the 2010 ACM-BCS Visions of Computer Science Conference, April 2010a, British Computer Society, p. 8

    Google Scholar 

  • L. Palen, S. Vieweg, K.M. Anderson, Supporting “everyday analysts” in safety-and time-critical situations. Inf. Soc. 27(1), 52–62 (2010b)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • B.L. Ranard, Y.P. Ha, Z.F. Meisel, D.A. Asch, S.S. Hill, L.B. Becker, A.K. Seymour, R.M. Merchant, Crowdsourcing—harnessing the masses to advance health and medicine, a systematic review. J. Gen. Intern. Med. 29(1), 187–203 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Y. Ren, S. Kiesler, S.R. Fussell, Multiple group coordination in complex and dynamic task environments: Interruptions, coping mechansism, and technology recommendations. J. Manag. Inf. Syst. 25(1), 105–130 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • J. Schnapp, P. Presner, Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0, accessed 14 October 2010 http://www.humanitiesblast.com/manifesto/Manifesto_V2.pdf (2009)

  • A. Schram, K.M. Anderson, MySQL to NoSQL: data modeling challenges in supporting scalability, in Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Systems, Programming, and Applications: Software for Humanity, October 2012, ACM, pp. 191–202

    Google Scholar 

  • C. Smith, GeoTag-X. Page 4–5 in SiS Catalyst Newsletter. October. Accessed online 5 December 2016 at: http://archive.siscatalyst.eu/sites/default/files/Newsletteroctober2014.pdf (2014)

  • J.D. Smyth, D.A. Dillman, L.M. Christian, M.J. Stern, Comparing check-all and forced-choice question formats in web surveys. Public Opin. Q. 70(1), 66–77 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • S.E. Spielman, Spatial collective intelligence? Credibility, accuracy, and volunteered geographic information. Cartogr. Geogr. Inf. Sci. 41(2), 115–124 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • L. Spiro, in Debates in The Digital Humanities. “This is why we fight”: defining the values of the digital humanities, vol 16 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012)

    Google Scholar 

  • K. Starbird, G. Muzny, L. Palen, Learning from the crowd: collaborative filtering techniques for identifying on-the-ground twitterers during mass disruptions, in Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM, Vancouver, Canada, 22–25 April 2012

    Google Scholar 

  • P. Tatham, K. Spens, Towards a humanitarian logistics knowledge management system. Disaster Prev Manag 20(1), 6–26 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • UNOCHA, OCHA Lessons Learned [Publicly Editable]–Collaboration with VTCs in Libya and Japan. Accessed online 26/08/2014 at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wut8oDRo9BYSlc0hQ34Ng8qQ-pLVGlRO95WOvR3MN78/edit?hl=en_US (2011)

  • B. Van De Walle, M. Turoff, ISCRAM: growing a global R&D community on information systems for crisis response and management. Int. J. Emerg. Manag. 3(4), 364–369 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • C. Westrope, R. Banick, M. Levine, Groundtruthing OpenStreetMap building damage assessment. Procedia Eng. 78, 29–39 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D.M. Wilkinson, Strong regularities in online peer production, in Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, July 2008, ACM, pp. 302–309

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Yin, A. Lampert, M. Cameron, B. Robinson, R. Power, Using social media to enhance emergency situation awareness. IEEE Intell. Syst. 27(6), 52–59 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Cobi Smith

Authors
  1. Cobi Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cobi Smith .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA

    Shalin Hai-Jew

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Smith, C. (2017). A Case Study of Crowdsourcing Imagery Coding in Natural Disasters. In: Hai-Jew, S. (eds) Data Analytics in Digital Humanities. Multimedia Systems and Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54499-1_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54499-1_9

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54498-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54499-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation