Statistics Canada has launched a new pilot project using OpenStreetmap.  For  many Canadians outside of the geomatics community this is an exiting opportunity.  It’s my hope that those members of the public who do volunteer to participate will for the first time be able to see how data is created by partaking in data creation.    Hopefully this pilot project will connect some of the dots in terms of the public’s understanding of Canada’s geomatics sector and the data they use everyday.

Last year I worked as a GIS specialist with the United Nations Ebola emergency response team in Switzerland. For Western Africa the crowdsourced data we used was amongst the best data sets available.

This is what Statistics Canada has to say about the project:

There are currently no accurate national-level statistics on buildings— and their attributes—that can be used to compare specific local areas(In Canada). The information you submit will help to fill existing data gaps and provide new analytical opportunities that are important to data users.

This project will also teach us about the possibilities and limitations of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing data collection may become a way for Statistics Canada and other organizations around the world to collect much-needed information by reaching out to citizens.

What you can do

Using your knowledge of your neighbourhood, along with an online mapping tool called OpenStreetMap, you and other members of the public will be able to input the location, physical attributes and other features of buildings.

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It all starts with you, on October 17, 2016

We will officially launch the crowdsourcing campaign for the pilot on October 17, 2016 and will provide further instructions and links to resources.

To subscribe to a distribution list for periodic updates on the project, send us an email at [email protected]. We will keep you posted!