Understanding the structure and the variety of content in OSM can enable researchers and policymakers to use it as a relevant dataset for their specific objectives.
Moreover, familiarity with tools and services for filtering and extracting data per geographic area or topic can empower users to tailor OSM data to meet their unique needs. Additionally, learning to contribute new data to OSM enriches the database and fosters a collaborative environment that supports ongoing geospatial research and community engagement both for researchers themselves and also in interactions with stakeholders and citizens. By actively participating in the OSM community, geoscientists can ensure that the data remains current and relevant, ultimately enhancing the impact of their work in addressing pressing environmental and societal challenges.
The short course will begin with an introduction to the concepts and content of OpenStreetMap, followed by a brief review of services and tools for filtering, extracting, and downloading data. Participants will engage in hands-on activities to contribute new data directly, along with hints and tips on how to understand and evaluate the pros and cons of its open and collaborative foundational principles.
This short course aims to provide you with a brief introduction to the vast, rich, and sometimes messy world of OpenStreetMap (OSM).
We’d like to provide you in advance with a few links and tips to help you follow the event, whether online or in person, and to encourage you to begin your own journey in open mapping.
First, we strongly recommend you register on OpenStreetMap.org to create your own account – you’ll become an "osmer" if you’re not already one!
learnOSM (https://learnosm.org) is a very nice place (an available in many languages) to start to dive into OSM; in particular, this section contains information on how to create a new account.
If you’re keen to test some of the functionalities we’ll be presenting, we also recommend installing QGIS (https://www.qgis.org/), especially if you’re looking to download and customize OSM data to suit your needs. The QuickOSM plugin (https://docs.3liz.org/QuickOSM/) will be used to make QGIS easily interact with OSM data.
Here's a bit more detailed agenda of the short course:
- General intro to OSM with principles and background (10')
- Editing 101 (20')
- Basics of editing in OSM, including explanation of OSM data structure
- Contributing via mobile phone: overview of available options
- Links to more advanced editors (JOSM / Rapid / HOT Task manager)
- Data extraction (30')
- OverpassTurbo / Overpass API
- QGIS / QuickOSM
- Osmium Tool
- Quality checks
- Examples from real case applications (20')
- Q&A (15')