OSM Guide for Park Agencies

[alanjosephwilliams]

(This initial issue thread captures a conversation that occurred on another repo)

Idea:

The ability to import trail data into OSM is a primary goal that has driven design of the specification. We've found that describing OSM, and its value, to park agencies and staff is often a challenge. A primer specifically for this audience would go a along way.

Description:

A graphically-rich print or web design piece that explains:

• The purpose, scale, and uses of OpenStreetMap.
• The problems governments face around licensing, and how they can be worked around.
• Direction to the PLATS conversion tool, which also outputs OSM-ready data.
• Guidance about how to interact with the import community.

+1

I would be a consumer of this.

Especially useful would be a description of the general philosophy behind how data gets into OSM and what it means to be an authoritative source in the context of OSM. So, really once data is "OSM-ready" what happens next? What are the paths that the data can take to eventually being seen on an OSM map.

@jmoe

[lyzidiamond]

I'm interested in this. I've been thinking about writing a general guide to OSM imports for government GIS users for a while, and OpenTrails seems like an easier place to start than buildings or addresses. Planning on starting to outline next week.

[alanjosephwilliams]

@lyzidiamond that's rad. This is timely, as folks in Portland are looking to adopt OpenTrails, but would need to determine a workflow for contributing that data to OSM as a pre-requisite.

Folks at NPS like @nateirwin might be good people to run drafts by as well, since they are familiar with the public domain -> ODbL flow of data.

[jmoe]

Do it @lyzidiamond !!! I really want this to exist and would be happy to review drafts as well.

[nateirwin]

I'd love to help out with this. We've done some work evangelizing OSM internally within the National Park Service, but I can't say we've been tremendously successful - especially within our GIS community. Most non-GISers buy in wholeheartedly, but there is a lot of skepticism about crowd-sourced data amongst professionals who create and maintain data for a living.

Spelling out the benefits of OSM and emphasizing that contributing to OSM doesn't necessarily mean changing internal data workflows seems to be the way to go.

[lyzidiamond]

@nateirwin @jmoe @alanjosephwilliams I'm going to set aside some time this week to start an outline, which I'll do here on github. Would definitely love feedback, and will make sure to come back and post the link in here.

[jmoe]

Can't wait to check this out and provide feedback!

[ryanbranciforte]

looking forward to checking this out Lyzi, thanks for taking it on! +1 on everyone's comments so far. i'll add that we have a great test bed in portland as they are already doing this to some extent, but want to expand on their efforts in order to take advantage of improved OSM base maps as well as tools that run off OSM, like OpenTripPlanner.

[jmoe]

It would be awesome if this document had a quick section on the ecosystem of tools that work with OSM data that are of particular interest in the parks and recreation context, OpenTripPlanner and Open Source Routing Machine are definitely top of mind for me.

[geobrando]

Hi. Has there been any movement on this? Some time ago I was able to acquire trails data compiled by a county trails committee with the intent of importing into OSM. This data consists of multiple shapefiles with segments from trails operated by the county park agency as well as numerous other state and local bodies. Currently, this data is only available publicly in static PDF maps and a web map.

I've recently become familiar with the OpenTrails spec and decided that instead of importing this data directly into OSM it might be more fruitful as a first step to approach the county about publishing using the spec. I was able to make a convincing case for why this data should be imported into OSM but it would be nice to have such a guide as I think this will be a harder sell.

[jmoe]

I've started working with a couple of groups that work extensively with parks and recreation groups to develop a set of guidelines for publishing park related data to OSM. Hoping to have a draft out in the next week or two. Once we have the draft we can socialize it with other park agencies and groups that work with park data in OSM. Sound good?

[geobrando]

That would be great. Thanks.