The USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP) sponsored various forms of
volunteer map data collection projects over the past two decades.
Citizen cartographers revised many maps during this period, but the
program was suspended in 2008.
New technologies and Internet services have made it easy to
georeference many different types of information and share this
information with others on map-based Internet platforms and social
networking sites in recent years.
This activity has been referred to as crowdsourcing, and the
information produced has been called volunteered geographic information
(VGI).
In light of this rapidly changing technical landscape, the increasing
use of social software for citizen mapping, and the mandates for more
transparency and citizen involvement in government, the USGS has
revitalized its volunteer program.
As a result, the USGS has launched a pilot project to once again encourage citizen participation.
The future of The National Map Corps
Collaborative pilot projects
in Colorado were recently used to test the concept of crowd-sourcing.
The volunteers’ actions were accurate and exceeded USGS quality
standards. The significant results of the Colorado pilot have led to a
phased, nation-wide expansion of the crowd-sourcing/volunteer project.
The following states are operational as of April 2013: Arkansas,
Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Montana,
North Dakota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South
Carolina, Utah, Washington, and West Virginia. By the end of 2013, all
50 states will be available for volunteer data collection.
For more information about the project and how to participate, go to The National Map Corps
web site at [ https://my.usgs.gov/confluence/display/nationalmapcorps/Home ].
Also contact us at NationalMapCorps@USGS.gov if you have questions or comments.
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