Tag Archives: microtasking

The Planetary Response Network: Using Citizen Science and Next Generation Satellites to Accelerate Disaster Damage Assessments

Posted on June 3, 2014 | 1 comment

Note: The Planetary Response Network was formerly called Zoomanitarians

The Planetary Response Network (PRN) has been in the works for well over a year, so we’re excited to be going fully public for the first time. PRN a joint initiative between Zooniverse (Brook Simmons), Planet Labs (Alex Bakir) and myself at QCRI. The purpose of Zoomanitarians is to accelerate disaster damage assessments by leveraging Planet Labs’ unique constellation of 28 satellites and Zooniverse’s highly scalable microtasking platform. As I noted in this earlier post, digital volunteers from Zooniverse tagged well over 2 million satellite images (of Mars, below) in just 48 hours. So why not invite Zooniverse volunteers to tag millions of images taken by Planet Labs following major disasters (on Earth) to help humanitarians accelerate their damage assessments?

Zooniverse Planet 4

That was the question I posed to Brooke and Alex in early 2013. “Why not indeed?” was our collective answer. So we reached out to several knowledgeable colleagues of mine including Kate Chapman from Humanitarian OpenStreetMap and Lars Bromley from UNOSAT for their feedback and guidance on the idea.

We’ll be able to launch our first pilot project later this year thanks to Kate who kindly provided us with very high-resolution UAV/aerial imagery of downtown Tacloban in the Philippines. Why do we want said imagery when the plan is to use Planet Labs imagery? Because Planet Labs imagery is currently available at 3-5 meter resolution so we’ll be “degrading” the resolution of the aerial imagery to determine just what level and type of damage can be captured at various resolutions as compared to the imagery from Planet Labs. The pilot project will therefore serve to (1) customize and test The Planetary Response Network’s microtasking platform and (2) determine what level of detail can be captured at various resolutions.

PlanetLabs

We’ll then spend the remainder of the year improving the platform based on the results of the pilot project during which time I will continue to seek input from humanitarian colleagues. Zooniverse’s microtasking platform has already been stress-tested extensively over the years, which is one reason why I approached Zooniverse last year. The other reason is that they have over 1 million digital volunteers on their list-serve. Couple this with Planet Labs’ unique constellation of 28 satellites, and you’ve got the potential for near real-time satellite imagery analysis for disaster response. Our plan is to produce “heat maps” based on the results and to share shape files as well for overlay on other maps.

It took imagery analysts well over 48 hours to acquire and analyze satellite imagery following Typhoon Yolanda. While Planet Labs imagery is not (yet) available at high-resolutions, our hope is that PRN will be able to acquire and analyze relevant imagery within 12-24 hours of a request. Several colleagues have confirmed to me that the results of this rapid analysis will also prove invaluable for subsequent, higher-resolution satellite imagery acquisition and analysis. On a related note, I hope that our rapid satellite-based damage assessments will also serve as a triangulation mechanism (ground-truthing) for the rapid social-media-driven damage assessments carried out using the Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response (AIDR) platform & MicroMappers.

While much work certainly remains, and while The Planetary Response Network is still in the early phases of research and development, I’m nevertheless excited and optimistic about the potential impact—as are my colleagues Brooke and Alex. We’ll be announcing the date of the pilot later this summer, so stay tuned for updates!

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Posted in Big Data, Crisis Mapping, Crowdsourcing, Humanitarian Technologies, Satellite Imagery

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Using MicroMappers to Make Sense of UAV Imagery During Disasters

Posted on May 29, 2014 | 8 comments

Aerial imagery will soon become a Big Data problem for humanitarian response—particularly oblique imagery. This was confirmed to me by a number of imagery experts in both the US (FEMA) and Europe (JRC). Aerial imagery taken at an angle is referred to as oblique imagery; compared to vertical imagery, which is taken by cameras pointing straight down (like satellite imagery). The team from Humanitarian OpenStreetMap (HOT) is already well equipped to make sense of vertical aerial imagery. They do this by microtasking the tracing of said imagery, as depicted below. So how do we rapidly analyze oblique images, which often provide more detail vis-a-vis infrastructure damage than vertical pictures?

HOTosm PH

One approach is to microtask the tagging of oblique images. This was carried out very successfully after Hurricane Sandy (screenshot below).

This solution did not include any tracing and was not designed to inform the development of machine learning classifiers to automatically identify features of interest, like damaged buildings, for example. Making sense of Big (Aerial) Data will ultimately require the combined use of human computing (microtasking) and machine learning. As volunteers use microtasking to trace features of interest such as damaged buildings pictured in oblique aerial imagery, perhaps machine learning algorithms can learn to detect these features automatically if enough examples of damaged buildings are provided. There is obviously value in doing automated feature detection with vertical imagery as well. So my team and I at QCRI have been collaborating with a local Filipino UAV start-up (SkyEye) to develop a new “Clicker” for our MicroMappers collection. We’ll be testing the “Aerial Clicker” below with our Filipino partners this summer. Incidentally, SkyEye is on the Advisory Board of the Humanitarian UAV Network (UAViators).

Aerial Clicker

Aerial Clicker 2

SkyEye is interested in developing a machine learning classifier to automatically identify coconut trees, for example. Why? Because coconut trees are an important source of livelihood for many Filipinos. Being able to rapidly identify trees that are still standing versus uprooted would enable SkyEye to quickly assess the impact of a Typhoon on local agriculture, which is important for food security & long-term recovery. So we hope to use the Aerial Clicker to microtask the tracing of coconut trees in order to significantly improve the accuracy of the machine learning classifier that SkyEye has already developed.

Will this be successful? One way to find out is by experimenting. I realize that developing a “visual version” of AIDR is anything but trivial. While AIDR was developed to automatically identify tweets (i.e., text) of interest during disasters by using microtasking and machine learning, what if we also had a free and open source platform to microtask and then automatically identify visual features of interest in both vertical and oblique imagery captured by UAVs? To be honest, I’m not sure how feasible this is vis-a-vis oblique imagery. As an imagery analyst at FEMA recently told me, this is still a research question for now. So I’m hoping to take this research on at QCRI but I do not want to duplicate any existing efforts in this space. So I would be grateful for feedback on this idea and any related research that iRevolution readers may recommend.

In the meantime, here’s another idea I’m toying with for the Aerial Clicker:

Aerial Clicker 3

I often see this in the aftermath of major disasters; affected communities turning to “analog social medial” to communicate when cell phone towers are down. The aerial imagery above was taken following Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines. And this is just one of several dozen images with analog media messages that I came across. So what if our Aerial Clicker were to ask digital volunteers to transcribe or categorize these messages? This would enable us to quickly create a crisis map of needs based on said content since every image is already geo-referenced. Thoughts?

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See Also:

  • Welcome to the Humanitarian UAV Network [link]
  • How UAVs are Making a Difference in Disaster Response [link]
  • Humanitarians Using UAVs for Post Disaster Recovery [link]
  • Grassroots UAVs for Disaster Response [link]
  • Using UAVs for Search & Rescue [link]
  • Debrief: UAV/Drone Search & Rescue Challenge [link]
  • Crowdsourcing Analysis of UAV Imagery for Search/Rescue [link]
  • Check-List for Flying UAVs in Humanitarian Settings [link]

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Posted in Drones/UAVs, Humanitarian Technologies

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Crowdsourcing the Search for Malaysia Flight 370 (Updated)

Posted on March 11, 2014 | 31 comments

Early Results available here!

Update from Tomnod: The response has literally been overwhelming: our servers struggled to keep up all day.  We’ve been hacking hard to make some fixes and I think that the site is working now but I apologize if you have problems connecting: we’re getting up to 100,000 page views every minute! DigitalGlobe satellites are continuing to collect imagery as new reports about the possible crash sites come in so we’ll keep updating the site with new data.

—

Beijing-bound Flight 370 suddenly disappeared on March 8th without a trace. My colleagues at Tomnod have just deployed their satellite imagery crowdsourcing platform to support the ongoing Search & Rescue efforts. Using high-resolution satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe, Tomnod is inviting digital volunteers from around the world to search for any sign of debris from missing Boeing 777.

MH370

The DigitalGlobe satellite imagery is dated March 9th and covers over 1,000 square miles. What the Tomnod platform does is slice that imagery into many small squares like the one below (click to enlarge). Volunteers then tag one image at a time. This process is known as microtasking (or crowd computing). For quality control purposes, each image is shown to more than one volunteer. This consensus-based approach allows Tomnod to triangulate the tagging.

TomNod

I’ve long advocated for the use of microtasking to support humanitarian efforts. In 2010, I wrote about how volunteers used microtasking to crowdsource the search for Steve Fossett who had disappeared while flying a small single-engine airplane in Nevada. This was back in 2007. In 2011, I spearheaded a partnership with the UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR) in Somalia and used the Tomnod platform to crowdsource the search for internally displaced populations in the drought-stricken Afgooye Corridor. More here. I later launched a collaboration with Amnesty International in Syria to crowdsource the search for evidence of major human rights violations—again with my colleagues from Tomnod. Recently, my team and I at QCRI have been developing MicroMappers to support humanitarian efforts. At the UN’s request, MicroMappers was launched following Typhoon Yolanda to accelerate their rapid damage assessment. I’ve also written on the use of crowd computing for Search & Rescue operations.

TomnodSomalia

I’m still keeping a tiny glimmer of hope that somehow Malaysia Flight 370 was able to land somewhere and that there are survivors. I can only image what families, loved ones and friends must be going through. I’m sure they are desperate for information, one way or another. So please consider spending a few minutes of your time to support these Search and Rescue efforts. Thank you.

Bio

Note: If you don’t see any satellite imagery on the Tomnod platform for Flight 370, this means the team is busy uploading new imagery. So please check in again in a couple hours.

See also: Analyzing Tweets on Malaysia Flight #MH370 [link]

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Posted in Big Data, Humanitarian Technologies, Satellite Imagery

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Using Crowd Computing to Analyze UAV Imagery for Search & Rescue Operations

Posted on February 17, 2014 | 30 comments

My brother recently pointed me to this BBC News article on the use of drones for Search & Rescue missions in England’s Lake District, one of my favorite areas of the UK. The picture below is one I took during my most recent visit. In my earlier blog post on the use of UAVs for Search & Rescue operations, I noted that UAV imagery & video footage could be quickly analyzed using a microtasking platform (like MicroMappers, which we used following Typhoon Yolanda). As it turns out, an enterprising team at the University of Central Lancashire has been using microtasking as part of their UAV Search & Rescue exercises in the Lake District.

Lake District

Every year, the Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team assists hundreds of injured and missing persons in the North of the Lake District. “The average search takes several hours and can require a large team of volunteers to set out in often poor weather conditions.” So the University of Central Lancashire teamed up with the Mountain Rescue Team to demonstrate that UAV technology coupled with crowdsourcing can reduce the time it takes to locate and rescue individuals.

The project, called AeroSee Experiment, worked as follows. The Mountain Rescue service receives a simulated distress call. As they plan their Search & Rescue operation, the University team dispatches their UAV to begin the search. Using live video-streaming, the UAV automatically transmits pictures back to the team’s website where members of the public can tag pictures that members of the Mountain Rescue service should investigate further. These tagged pictures are then forwarded to “the Mountain Rescue Control Center for a final opinion and dispatch of search teams.” Click to enlarge the diagram below.

AeroSee

Members of the crowd would simply log on to the AeroSee website and begin tagging. Although the experiment is over, you can still do a Practice Run here. Below is a screenshot of the microtasking interface (click to enlarge). One picture at a time is displayed. If the picture displays potentially important clues, then the digital volunteer points to said area of the picture and types in why they believe the clue they’re pointing at might be important.

AeroSee MT2

The results were impressive. A total of 335 digital volunteers looked through 11,834 pictures and the “injured” walker (UAV image below) was found within 69 seconds of the picture being uploaded to microtasking website. The project team subsequently posted this public leaderboard to acknowledge all volunteers who participated, listing their scores and levels of accuracy for feedback purposes.

Aero MT3

Upon further review of the data and results, the project team concluded that the experiment was a success and that digital Search & Rescue volunteers were able to “home in on the location of our missing person before the drones had even landed!” The texts added to the tagged images were also very descriptive, which helped the team “locate the casualty very quickly from the more tentative tags on other images.”

If the area being surveyed during a Search & Rescue operation is fairly limited, then using the crowd to process UAV images is a quick and straightforward, especially if the crowd is relatively large. We have over 400 digital humanitarian volunteers signed up for MicroMappers (launched in November 2013) and hope to grow this to 1,000+ in 2014. But for much larger areas, like Kruger National Park, one would need far more volunteers. Kruger covers 7,523 square miles compared to the Lake District’s 885 square miles.

kruger-gate-sign

One answer to this need for more volunteers could be the good work that my colleagues over at Zooniverse are doing. Launched in February 2009, Zooniverse has a unique volunteer base of one million volunteers. Another solution is to use machine computing to prioritize the flights paths of UAVs in the first place, i.e., use advanced algorithms to considerably reduce the search area by ruling out areas that missing people or other objects of interest (like rhinos in Kruger) are highly unlikely to be based on weather, terrain, season and other data.

This is the area that my colleague Tom Snitch works in. As he noted in this recent interview (PDF), “We want to plan a flight path for the drone so that the number of unprotected animals is as small as possible.” To do this, he and his team use “exquisite mathematics and complex algorithms” to learn how “animals, rangers and poachers move through space and time.” In the case Search & Rescue, ruling out areas that are too steep and impossible for humans to climb or walk through could go a long way to reducing the search area not to mention the search time.

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See also:

  • Using UAVs for Search & Rescue [link]
  • MicroMappers: Microtasking for Disaster Response [link]
  • Results of MicroMappers Response to Typhoon Yolanda [link]
  • How UAVs are Making a Difference in Disaster Response [link]
  • Crowdsourcing Evaluation of Sandy Building Damage [link]

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Posted in Crowdsourcing, Drones/UAVs, Humanitarian Technologies

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Early Results of MicroMappers Response to Typhoon Yolanda (Updated)

Posted on November 13, 2013 | 36 comments

We have completed our digital humanitarian operation in the Philippines after five continuous days with MicroMappers. Many, many thanks to all volunteers from all around the world who donated their time by clicking on tweets and images coming from the Philippines. Our UN OCHA colleagues have confirmed that the results are being shared widely with their teams in the field and with other humanitarian organizations on the ground. More here.

ImageClicker

In terms of preliminary figures (to be confirmed):

  • Tweets collected during first 48 hours of landfall = ~230,000
  • Tweets automatically filtered for relevancy/uniqueness = ~55,000
  • Tweets clicked using the TweetClicker = ~ 30,000
  • Relevant tweets triangulated using TweetClicker = ~3,800
  • Triangulated tweets published on live Crisis Map = ~600
  • Total clicks on TweetClicker = ~ 90,000
  • Images clicked using the ImageClicker = ~ 5,000
  • Relevant images triangulated using TweetClicker = ~1,200
  • Triangulated images published on live Crisis Map = ~180
  • Total clicks on ImageClicker = ~15,000
  • Total clicks on MicroMappers (Image + Tweet Clickers) = ~105,000

Since each single tweet and image uploaded to the Clickers was clicked on by (at least) three individual volunteers for quality control purposes, the number of clicks is three times the total number of tweets and images uploaded to the respective clickers. In sum, digital humanitarian volunteers have clocked a grand total of ~105,000 clicks to support humanitarian operations in the Philippines.

While the media has largely focused on the technology angle of our digital humanitarian operation, the human story is for me the more powerful message. This operation succeeded because people cared. Those ~105,000 clicks did not magically happen. Each and every single one of them was clocked by humans, not machines. At one point, we had over 300 digital volunteers from the world over clicking away at the same time on the TweetClicker and more than 200 on the ImageClicker. This kind of active engagement by total strangers—good “digital Samaritans”—explains why I find the human angle of this story to be the most inspiring outcome of MicroMappers. “Crowdsourcing” is just a new term for the old saying “it takes a village,” and sometimes it takes a digital village to support humanitarian efforts on the ground.

Until recently, when disasters struck in faraway lands, we would watch the news on television wishing we could somehow help. That private wish—that innate human emotion—would perhaps translate into a donation. Today, not only can you donate cash to support those affected by disasters, you can also donate a few minutes of your time to support the operational humanitarian response on the ground by simply clicking on MicroMappers. In other words, you can translate your private wish into direct, online public action, which in turn translates into supporting offline collective action in the disaster-affected areas.

Clicking is so simple that anyone with Internet access can help. We had high schoolers in Qatar clicking away, fire officers in Belgium, graduate students in Boston, a retired couple in Kenya and young Filipinos clicking away. They all cared and took the time to try and help others, often from thousands of miles away. That is the kind of world I want to live in. So if you share this vision, then feel free to join the MicroMapper list-serve.

Yolanda TweetClicker4

Considering that MicroMappers is still very much under development, we are all pleased with the results. There were of course many challenges; the most serious was the CrowdCrafting server which hosts our Clickers. Unfortunately, that server was not able to handle the load and traffic generated by digital volunteers. So their server crashed twice and also slowed our Clickers to a complete stop at least a dozen times during the past five days. At times, it would take 10-15 seconds for a new tweet or image to load, which was frustrating. We were also limited by the number of tweets and images we could upload at any given time, usually ~1,500 at most. Any larger load would seriously slow down the Clickers. So it is rather remarkable that digital volunteers managed to clock more than 100,000 clicks given the repeated interruptions. 

Besides the server issue, the other main bottleneck was the geo-location of the ~30,000 tweets and ~5,000 images tagged using the Clickers. We do have a Tweet and Image GeoClicker but these were not slated to launch until next week at CrisisMappers 2013, which meant they weren’t ready for prime time. We’ll be sure to launch them soon. Once they are operational, we’ll be able to automatically push triangulated tweets and images from the Tweet and Image Clickers directly to the corresponding GeoClickers so volunteers can also aid humanitarian organizations by mapping important tweets and images directly.

There’s a lot more that we’ve learned throughout the past 5 days and much room for improvement. We have a long list of excellent suggestions and feedback from volunteers and partners that we’ll be going through starting tomorrow. The most important next step is to get a more powerful server that can handle a lot more load and traffic. We’re already taking action on that. I have no doubt that our clicks would have doubled without the server constraints.

For now, though, BIG thanks to the SBTF Team and in particular Jus McKinnon, the QCRI et al team, in particular Ji Lucas, Hemant Purohit and Andrew Ilyas for putting in very, very long hours, day in and day out on top of their full-time jobs and studies. And finally, BIG thanks to the World Wide Crowd, to all you who cared enough to click and support the relief operations in the Philippines. You are the heroes of this story.

bio

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Posted in Big Data, Crowdsourcing, Digital Activism, Humanitarian Technologies, Social Computing, Social Media

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Typhoon Yolanda: UN Needs Your Help Tagging Crisis Tweets for Disaster Response (Updated)

Posted on November 8, 2013 | 42 comments

Final Update 14 [Nov 13th @ 4pm London]: Thank you for clicking to support the UN’s relief operations in the Philippines! We have now completed our mission as digital humanitarian volunteers. The early results of our collective online efforts are described here. Thank you for caring and clicking. Feel free to join our list-serve if you want to be notified when humanitarian organizations need your help again during the next disaster—which we really hope won’t be for a long, long time. In the meantime, our hearts and prayers go out to those affected by this devastating Typhoon.

–

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) just activated the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN) in response to Typhoon Yolanda, which has already been described as possibly one of the strongest Category 5 storms in history. The Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF) was thus activated by the DHN to carry out a rapid needs & damage assessment by tagging reports posted to social media. So Ji Lucas and I at QCRI (+ Hemant & Andrew) and Justine Mackinnon from SBTF have launched MicroMappers to microtask the tagging of tweets & images. We need all the help we can get given the volume we’ve collected (and are continuing to collect). This is where you come in!

TweetClicker_PH2

You don’t need any prior experience or training, nor do you need to create an account or even login to use the MicroMappers TweetClicker. If you can read and use a computer mouse, then you’re all set to be a Digital Humanitarian! Just click here to get started. Every tweet will get tagged by 3 different volunteers (to ensure quality control) and those tweets that get identical tags will be shared with our UN colleagues in the Philippines. All this and more is explained in the link above, which will give you a quick intro so you can get started right away. Our UN colleagues need these tags to better understand who needs help and what areas have been affected.

ImageClicker YolandaPH

It only takes 3 seconds to tag a tweet or image, so if that’s all the time you have then that’s plenty! And better yet, if you also share this link with family, friends, colleagues etc., and invite them to tag along. We’ll soon be launching We have also launched the ImageClicker to tag images by level of damage. So please stay tuned. What we need is the World Wide Crowd to mobilize in support of those affected by this devastating disaster. So please spread the word. And keep in mind that this is only the second time we’re using MicroMappers, so we know it is not (yet) perfect : ) Thank you!

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p.s. If you wish to receive an alert next time MicroMappers is activated for disaster response, then please join the MicroMappers list-serve here. Thanks!

Previous updates:

Update 1: If you notice that all the tweets (tasks) have been completed, then please check back in 1/2 hour as we’re uploading more tweets on the fly. Thanks!

Update 2: Thanks for all your help! We are getting lots of traffic, so the Clicker is responding very slowly right now. We’re working on improving speed, thanks for your patience!

Update 3: We collected 182,000+ tweets on Friday from 5am-7pm (local time) and have automatically filtered this down to 35,175 tweets based on relevancy and uniqueness. These 35K tweets are being uploaded to the TweetClicker a few thousand tweets at a time. We’ll be repeating all this for just one more day tomorrow (Saturday). Thanks for your continued support!

Update 4: We/you have clicked through all of Friday’s 35K tweets and currently clicking through today’s 28,202 tweets, which we are about 75% of the way through. Many thanks for tagging along with us, please keep up the top class clicking, we’re almost there! (Sunday, 1pm NY time)

Update 5: Thanks for all your help! We’ll be uploading more tweets tomorrow (Monday, November 11th). To be notified, simply join this list-serve. Thanks again! [updated post on Sunday, November 10th at 5.30pm New York]

Update 6: We’ve uploaded more tweets! This is the final stretch, thanks for helping us on this last sprint of clicks!  Feel free to join our list-serve if you want to be notified when new tweets are available, many thanks! If the system says all tweets have been completed, please check again in 1/2hr as we are uploading new tweets around the clock. [updated Monday, November 11th at 9am London]

Update 7 [Nov 11th @ 1pm London]: We’ve just launched the ImageClicker to support the UN’s relief efforts. So please join us in tagging images to provide rapid damage assessments to our humanitarian partners. Our TweetClicker is still in need of your clicks too. If the Clickers are slow, then kindly be patient. If all the tasks are done, please come back in 1/2hr as we’re uploading content to both clickers around the clock. Thanks for caring and helping the relief efforts. An update on the overall digital humanitarian effort is available here.

Update 8 [Nov 11th @ 6.30pm NY]: We’ll be uploading more tweets and images to the TweetClicker & ImageClicker by 7am London on Nov 12th. Thank you very much for supporting these digital humanitarian efforts, the results of which are displayed here. Feel free to join our list-serve if you want to be notified when the Clickers have been fed!

Update 9 [Nov 12th @ 6.30am London]: We’ve fed both our TweetClicker and ImageClicker with new tweets and images. So please join us in clicking away to provide our UN partners with the situational awareness they need to coordinate their important relief efforts on the ground. The results of all our clicks are displayed here. Thank you for helping and for caring. If the Clickers or empty or offline temporarily, please check back again soon for more clicks.

Update 10 [Nov 12th @ 10am New York]: Were continuing to feed both our TweetClicker and ImageClicker with new tweets and images. So please join us in clicking away to provide our UN partners with the situational awareness they need to coordinate their important relief efforts on the ground. The results of all our clicks are displayed here. Thank you for helping and for caring. If the Clickers or empty or offline temporarily, please check back again soon for more clicks. Try different browsers if the tweets/images are not showing up.

Update 11 [Nov 12th @ 5pm New York]: Only one more day to go! We’ll be feeding our TweetClicker and ImageClicker with new tweets and images by 7am London on the 13th. We will phase out operations by 2pm London, so this is the final sprint. The results of all our clicks are displayed here. Thank you for helping and for caring. If the Clickers are empty or offline temporarily, please check back again soon for more clicks. Try different browsers if the tweets/images are not showing up.

Update 12 [Nov 13th @ 9am London]: This is the last stretch, Clickers! We’ve fed our TweetClicker and ImageClicker with new tweets and images. We’ll be refilling them until 2pm London (10pm Manila) and phasing out shortly thereafter. Given that MicroMappers is still under development, we are pleased that this deployment went so well considering. The results of all our clicks are displayed here. Thank you for helping and for caring. If the Clickers are empty or offline temporarily, please check back again soon for more clicks. Try different browsers if the tweets/images are not showing up.

Update 13 [Nov 13th @ 11am London]: Just 3 hours left! Our UN OCHA colleagues have just asked us to prioritize the ImageClicker, so please focus on that Clicker. We’ll be refilling the ImageClicker until 2pm London (10pm Manila) and phasing out shortly thereafter. Given that MicroMappers is still under development, we are pleased that this deployment went so well considering. The results of all our clicks are displayed here. Thank you for helping and for caring. If the ImageClicker is empty or offline temporarily, please check back again soon for more clicks. Try different browsers if images are not showing up.

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Posted in Big Data, Crowdsourcing, Humanitarian Technologies, Social Computing, Social Media

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MicroMappers: Microtasking for Disaster Response

Posted on September 18, 2013 | 40 comments

My team and I at QCRI are about to launch MicroMappers: the first ever set of microtasking apps specifically customized for digital humanitarian response. If you’re new to microtasking in the context of disaster response, then I recommend reading this, this and this. The purpose of our web-based microtasking apps (we call them Clickers) is to quickly make sense of all the user-generated, multi-media content posted on social media during disasters. How? By using microtasking and making it as easy as a single click of the mouse to become a digital humanitarian volunteer. This is how volunteers with Zooniverse were able to click-and-thus-tag well over 2,000,000 images in under 48-hours.

We have already developed and customized four Clickers using the free and open source microtasking platform CrowdCrafting: TweetClicker, TweetGeoClicker, ImageClicker and ImageGeoClicker. Each Clicker includes a mini-tutorial to guide volunteers. While we’re planning to launch them live next month, these Clickers (described below) can be used right now if need be. When a disaster strikes, we can automatically upload tweets to the TweetClicker, for example. These tweets are pre-filtered for keywords and hashtags relevant to the disaster in question. We can also automatically identify multimedia content posted to Twitter and upload this to the ImageClicker to tag pictures that show damage, for example.

TweetClicker

TweetClicker:  This Clicker invites volunteers to tag tweets based on categories specified by an organization like the UN, Red Cross or FEMA. These categories could include those from the UN Cluster System or other information needs.

TweetClicker_screenshot2

ImageClicker

ImageClicker: The purpose of this Clicker is to tag pictures posted on social media (and elsewhere) based on categories specified by a humanitarian organization. Images are auto-matically scraped from Twitter and uploaded to this Clicker.

ImageClicker_screenshot4

TweetGeoClickerTweetGeoClicker: This Clicker invites volunteers to geo-tag tweets (that are not already automatically geo-tagged). The Clicker’s mini-tutorial provides a list of tips on how to find the GPS locations of places mentioned in a given tweet.

TweetGeoClicker_screenshot

ImageGeoClickerImageGeoClicker: The purpose of this Clicker is to geo-tag images posted on social media (that are not geo-tagged auto-matically). Like the Clicker above, a mini-tutorial provides a list of tips on how to find out where a given image was taken.

ImageGeoClicker_screenshot2

We are working on developing several more Clickers such as a VideoClicker and welcome suggestions for other Clickers. We are also developing “Connectors” for the Clickers we’ve developed. That is, once a tweet has been tagged using the TweetClicker, it can be automatically pushed to the TweetGeoClicker for geo-tagging purposes. Note that all our Clickers include built-in quality control mechanisms. For example, only if 3 volunteers tag an image as showing disaster damage does that image get tagged as such. This voting system ensures a high level of data quality.

Finally, we’re developing a Crisis Mapping feature to display geo-tagged tweets and images that are processed using our Clickers. For example, as soon as an image is geo-tagged by 3 volunteers using the ImageGeoClicker, it automatically appears on the live Crisis Map in real-time. Other data visualization features are also possible, such as an interface that provides trends and statistical analysis of the microtasked data. This too is on our to-do list. We’re also looking into making these Clickers useable on smartphones and tablets.

While MicroMappers is a joint collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Clickers are open for use by other humanitarian organizations such as FEMA and the Red Cross. Simply get in touch with me if you’d like to use these Clickers. In the meantime, many thanks to the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), a founding member of the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN), for their invaluable feedback on earlier versions of the Clickers.

Want to be a MicroMapper? Simply join us here! We’ll provide you with updates and let you know when humanitarian organizations need your support to make sense of social media reports following a disaster.

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See also: 

  • Results of MicroMappers Response to Pakistan Earthquake (Link)
  • MicroMappers featured on UK Guardian and Wired

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