[Ica-osgeo-labs] Welcoming ideas from all for MapStories for Geo4All Cartographic Challenge on how How Openness can help to reduce inequality

Wed Mar 2 06:25:33 PST 2016

Hi Jon,

Thank you for the Education map link. This is a great starting point which all of us can make of to bring together ideas to convey the wider impact of education initiatives (also help cross reference it later with other key economic and societal development indicators ) worldwide for helping create a better world.

Once your new website is ready in April following new updates , we will also plan to announce the Geo4All - MapStory partnership for advancing spatial literacy education for schools globally. We will be adding MapStory link in our Training section of the website and our Geo4All School education chairs (Nikos and Ela) will be in touch with more ideas on how we can all work to provide some intro materials as well as take steps to translate the content in different languages etc.

I understand that Pradeep is looking into the timeline and developments of  IT at Schools's growth in Kerala. This is good example for the Geo4All Cartographic Challenge in support of the International Map Year of the UN .

Pradeep -  Thank you for looking into this and it will be good if you can get few of your colleagues and students at the University of Kerala to also help you with this and create a MapStory. If you have any technical  queries on the platform or creating a new MapStory etc, please email  Jon and he will be happy to help.

All - May i  request colleagues who have other examples to please contribute your ideas/inputs for this.It will greatly help policy makers understand the impact of open principles in education in empowering students globally and making them part of the digital economy opportunities.

I am also ccing the wider OSGeo community as i am sure that there might be more examples that can help with this. If you have good examples for education , please email the list or Dr Silvana Camboim (UFPR, Brazil)   or Mike Finn  (USGS) whose details are below. Thanks in advance for your help.

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________
From: Jonathan Marino [marino at mapstory.org]
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 9:41 PM
To: Christopher Tucker
Cc: Suchith Anand; A.P.Pradeepkumar; Silvana Camboim; Finn, Michael; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: Welcoming ideas from all for MapStories for Geo4All Cartographic Challenge on how How Openness can help to reduce inequality

Apologies. Correct link to the Initiative Page is http://mapstory.org/initiative/education.

Best,
Jon

On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 4:28 PM, Jonathan Marino <marino at mapstory.org<mailto:marino at mapstory.org>> wrote:
Hi all,

Have enjoyed following this thread. As someone with an education background before coming on to help grow MapStory.org, I'm getting excited about the possibility of using MapStory to mobilize a global community in mapping access to education - through time - on a number of indicators.

I'd love to dedicate time in March and April to getting this going in earnest. It would be an ideal demonstration of MapStory.org's new feature set.

As Chris mentioned, by April we will have better instructional videos and a stable workflow so that any registered user - even students - will feel comfortable in uploading and editing StoryLayers and composing their own MapStories.

But, we don't have to wait until then to get started as a group.

It sounds like a first step would be getting some starter data on the Kerala experience and the IT Schools growth. We should identify some of the variables were interested in showing (schools with access to X resource, for example, or type of school).

The way MapStory is being designed is that a "StoryLayer", our word for a spatio-temporal dataset, will be "opened for editing", at which point others can add and modify features directly in the web browser. So, if we had, say, all the schools in Kerala that offer certain services, we could then launch a global effort to map schools worldwide that have that same set of resources, and invite students, teachers, etc to 'add to the map'. Edits will be able to be made one at a time, or in bulk using our "Append" feature. The culmination would be a "StoryLayer" that shows the growth spread/growth of what was mapped over time, with tracked changes of who added what, when.

If there are "StoryLayers" we want to create but don't have any starter data to upload, we can "Create" new StoryLayers natively inside MapStory.org and just start adding features.

Secondly, as we amass these StoryLayers, we can use them in an unlimited number of "MapStories". MapStories are just geospatial narratives that combine multiple storylayers, media objects, text, etc with the goal of making a point or drawing out a theme. For example, a "StoryLayer" might just show the descriptive spread of schools of some type in Kerala, but a "MapStory" might add text, videos and other narrative in order to make an argument about why this phenomena happened. What laws changed? Who took leadership? Etc.

I went ahead and created a "Community Initiative" called Education that could help organize this effort. A "Community Initiative" is sponsored effort that we at the MapStory Foundation prioritize and help orchestrate with an Initiative page (http://mapstory.org/initiative/mapstory-education). Here we can pull in StoryLayers that are part of the initiative, define priority tasks, and identify storytellers that are leading the charge.

Love to discuss this more in coming days/weeks with all of you!

Jon

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 11:26 AM, Christopher Tucker <tucker at mapstory.org<mailto:tucker at mapstory.org>> wrote:
Suchith,

That is correct.  Ideally earlier.  But beginning of April would work.  Our new uploader is deployed to production, so anyone who wants to simply upload layers (for instance, of their schools physical evolution) could do that now.  The storytelling work is yet to be finalized and pushed to production.

We intend to hold a global instructional on the new MapStory for the Geo4All community soon after launch, which would cover all dimensions of the platform including crowd-editing and storytelling.

Thanks for your interest!

Chris
703-981-9373<tel:703-981-9373>

On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:52 AM, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote:

Thanks Pradeep.

It will help show the scalability of the initiative through time. For example, few schools in 2005 to 12000 schools now, where these schools are , how many students in each school benefitted over time, teachers trained, no. of computers in each school etc. So in a few minutes anyone can get a holistic idea of the wider impact .

I understand fro the MapStory website, that MapStory site to being updated with more functionality etc and it should be ready in April beginning? Chris, Jon - is that correct?  So maybe Pradeep by the time you get all the background information on IT at Schools , you will be able to add the new MapStory with more functionalities.

Also what i hope, is for our Geo4All spatial literacy program, then students in each of these 12000 schools can look at thier school as an example and start a MapStory on thier local geography, history etc and link to IT at School developments (add narratives etc) .

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________
From: A.P.Pradeepkumar [geo.pradeep at keralauniversity.ac.in<mailto:geo.pradeep at keralauniversity.ac.in>]
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 2:29 AM
To: Suchith Anand
Cc: tucker at mapstory.org<mailto:tucker at mapstory.org>; marino at mapstory.org<mailto:marino at mapstory.org>; Silvana Camboim; Finn, Michael; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: Welcoming ideas from all for MapStories for Geo4All Cartographic Challenge on how How Openness can help to reduce inequality

Hello Suchith,

Great idea. And I will look into the Kerala experience of IT at Schools.

All together it would be a great MapStory.

Best

Pradeep

On 24-02-2016 18:16, Suchith Anand wrote:

Hi Chris, Jon,

I would like to connect you with Silvana and Mike and the wider community who are running the  Geo4All Cartographic Challenge as part of the International Map Year so that we can plan to  have MapStory as a platform to help provide some excellent interactive examples of How Openness can help to reduce inequality esp. in providing quality education opportunities for students from economically poor backgrounds.

There are many examples we can look into. For example, it will be great to have MapStory on the spatio-temporal development  of gvSIG Batovi initiative in Uruguay (as we have Sergio cc in who can provide us more details and contacts and IT at Schools https://www.itschool.gov.in/glance.php  in Kerala (cc in Pradeepkumar ,University of Kerala who is working to establish an OSGeo lab in Kerala University)

This will also help us convey the impact of open principles in education. It takes years to really see the impact of education efforts.

Silvana, Mike - please discuss your competition ideas with Chris, Jon and any specific queries you have please inform any help needed.

Sergio, Pradeep - can you please help with this. Thanks.

All - if you have any other examples , please discuss ideas for developing MapStory based on your educational examples on this and we can link all this in our website later. It will greatly help policy makers understand the impact of open principles in education in empowering students globally and making them part of the digital economy opportunities.

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________
From: Discuss [discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] on behalf of Suchith Anand [Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 8:17 PM
To: Silvana Camboim; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>; OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Ica-osgeo-labs] Geo4All Cartographic Challenge – How Openness can help to reduce inequality

Our thanks to Professor Silvana Comboim  (The Federal University of Paraná, Brazil) and chair of the ICA Commission on Open source Geotechnologies and Mike Finn (United States Geological Survey, USA) and cochair of the ICA Commission on Open source Geotechnologies for leading this excellent Geo4All Cartographic Challenge as part of the International Map Year to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on Reducing inequality within and among countries. I think this is a great opportunity to highlight the importance of working together on the bigger aim to empower and provide quality education opportunities for our bottom billions brothers and sisters worldwide (who are too poor that they dont even have a voice).

Digital technologies are a big enabler for providing Quality education opportunities for everyone. The costs of hardware is coming down (and will keep coming down), internet access is increasing even in poor countries (and will keep increasing) but the biggest artificial barrier is the high cost of properitary software. So by having free and open software will enable billions of our brothers and sisters globally to also get opportunities for getting quality education. I have seen this happening in poor schools in my own state Kerala in India,  where thanks to a pioneering initiative called IT at Schools which is also the world's  largest simultaneous deployment of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) based ICT education providing opportunities for over 12,000 schools, benifitting 6 million students and 200,000 teachers in the state.  Details at https://www.itschool.gov.in/glance.php   The scalability of this initiative has been amazing and this would not have happened if we had to depend of properitery vendors.

There are lot of examples around the world that shows the power of open principles in education. For example, our colleagues in Uruguay (Sergio Acosta y Lara and others) are doing amazing work through gvSIG Batovi initiative providing digital education opportunities to all students in government schools across the country through the wider CEIBAL initiative. See details at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orwN9K07XPo   (video with English translation).

Education and empowerment  are key  for getting rid of extreme poverty and help create digital economy opportunities also for  billions of our economically poor brothers and sisters across our planet and we cannot allow creating artificial digital barriers through high costs properitary licences to keep continue denying them their rightful opportunities for a better future for thier children. Access to quality education opportunities is everyone's birthright.

Education and empowerment of students are also key  for developing creative and open minds in students which is critical for building open innovation and contributes to building up Open Knowledge for the benefit of the whole society and for our future generations. So let us all work together to enable open principles in education to help create a world that is more accessible, equitable and full of innovation and opportunities for everyone.

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] on behalf of Silvana Camboim [silvanacamboim at gmail.com<mailto:silvanacamboim at gmail.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 5:29 PM
To: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Geo4All Cartographic Challenge – How Openness can help to reduce inequality

<IMY_logo_300x100.png>

This year is International Map Year [1], a worldwide celebration of maps and their unique role in our world. It’s organized by the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and supported by the United Nations (UN).

To celebrate this year, ICA Commissions are preparing a series of activities to demonstrate the ability of Cartography helping to solve global issues, accordingly to the UN Sustainable Development Goals [2]

The result of this will be a poster exposition and an Atlas published by ICA. Each goal (there are 17) will have one poster. The Open Source Geotechnologies Commission got the Goal number 10 (“Reduce inequality within and among countries”). Under this goal, there are 7 targets detailed in page 21 of this document [3].

UN Sustainable Development Goal 10 –  Reduce inequality within and among countries

10.1  By  2030,  progressively  achieve  and  sustain  income  growth  of  the  bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average
10.2  By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of  all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
10.3  Ensure  equal  opportunity  and  reduce  inequalities  of  outcome,  including  by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard
10.4  Adopt  policies,  especially  fiscal,  wage  and  social  protection  policies,  and progressively achieve greater equality
10.5  Improve  the  regulation  and  monitoring  of  global  financial  markets  and institutions and strengthen the implementation of suchregulations
10.6  Ensure  enhanced  representation  and  voice  for  developing  countries  in decision-making in global international economic and financial institutions in order to deliver more effective, credible, accountable and legitimate institutions
10.7  Facilitate  orderly,  safe,  regular  and  responsible  migration  and  mobility  of people,  including  through  the  implementation  of  planned  and  well-managed migration policies
10.a  Implement the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries, in particular least developed countries,in accordance with World Trade Organization agreements
10.b  Encourage  official  development  assistance  and financial  flows,  including foreign direct investment, to States where the needis greatest, in particular least developed  countries,  African  countries,  small  island  developing  States  and landlocked  developing  countries,  in  accordance  withtheir  national  plans  and programmes
10.c  By  2030,  reduce  to  less  than  3 per cent  the  transaction  costs  of  migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors withcosts higher than 5 percent

This challenge is a call for all Geo4labs for inputs to construct this poster in an open and collaborative way. The idea is to expand the poster to a website, where projects, applications, and other solutions could be shared. This is a great opportunity to showcase the labs outcomes in the UN environment in this very sensitive and important global issue.  Any other ideas on this project are welcome!

How to participate:

  *   Send and abstract from 500 to 1000 words include as many pictures of classes, projects, field works, mapathons, and, of course, maps and map interfaces.
  *    Optional: Video with up to 5 minutes presenting your lab activities.
  *    Send the results to geo4all.cartographicchallenge at gmail.com<mailto:geo4all.cartographicchallenge at gmail.com> until March 31st, 2016.

During the month of April, the posters layout ideas will be open to vote and collaboration.

Outputs :

  *      Poster and ICA Atlas
  *      Website with results and edited video
  *      Publication of the abstracts with ISBN

Best regards,

Silvana Camboim (chair) – silvanacamboim at gmail.com<mailto:silvanacamboim at gmail.com>

Mike Finn (co-chair) - mfinn at usgs.gov<mailto:mfinn at usgs.gov>

Open Source Geotechnologies Commission – http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/

[1] http://mapyear.org//

[2] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/

[3] http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=EICA

--

Dr.A.P.Pradeepkumar
Associate Professor and Head
Dept of Geology
Univ of Kerala
Trivandrum 695 581
INDIA
Mob: 9895 24 5380

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AkY4ZAsAAAAJ&hl=en

--
815.222.9088<tel:815.222.9088>
@MapStory<http://twitter.com/mapstory>

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@MapStory<http://twitter.com/mapstory>

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