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“Mapping” Religious Communities in the Birmingham:

Assessing the Options

University of Birmingham School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion

002021 Sep 06

Email: [email protected] • Twitter @kidwellj

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We can all agree that getting "on the map" is crucial

But not all possible routes are the same...

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{two basic approaches}

Static:

any changes to the database of sites has to be done manually

Dynamic:

the database of sites can be altered at any time

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Static databases

Can be highly accurate, as the designer has complete control over content

Can very quickly become out of date when ...

  • Funding runs out
  • Staffing changes
  • People retire
  • Passion recedes

No matter how amazing a project is when it is launched, if a sustainability plan isn't in place, that website is going to eventually become "ROT" (redundant, outdated or trivial).

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The moral of the story is...

Unless you can guarantee stable funding and staff for a project it will become ROT.

This is a problem because if we produce an online resource and encourage people to use it and that resource becomes unreliable, then we risk doing harm to the communities or agencies relying on it.

n.b. https://web.archive.org/web/20180601004748/http://www.birminghamfaithmap.org.uk/

and https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/cy/request/birmingham_faith_map_data

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Dynamic databases:

  • Can be adjusted by users (either a small group or a global one)
  • But accuracy is harder to predict
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Research into wikipedia has shown that if there is an adequate community around a web resource, they can be quite accurate. One study by Nature in 2005 found that there was little difference between scientific content on Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia in terms of accuracy. https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a

Given certain conditions, user-generated content can be accurate and it is naturally more participatory and sustainable than static databases.

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So let's take a quick look at the state of things on the major geospatial databases (for Britain):

Ordnance Survey (www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk)

Google maps API (maps.google.com)

Open street maps (openstreetmaps.org)

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Problem 1: Incomplete datasets

(a quick example, data from 2018)

Mosques and Islamic community centres in Birmingham metro (+50km):

*Relevant mythbusting - crowdsourced data is not less accurate that commercially developed data. See:

  • Pascal Neis and Alexander Zipf, “Analyzing the contributor activity of a volunteered geographic information project: The case of OpenStreetMap,” ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 2 (2012): 146–165.
  • Mordechai Haklay, “How good is volunteered geographical information? A comparative study of OpenStreetMap and Ordnance Survey datasets,” Environment and planning B: Planning and design 4 (2010): 682--703.
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Problem 2: Misleading data

According to Ordnance Survey, in 2019:

Of 46,057 places of worship in the UK:

  • 3584 Methodist churches (shall we say 4812?)
  • 2476 Catholic Churches (more like 2855...)
  • 2446 churches designated as “Church of England” (how about 16k?)
  • 1692 baptist churches

~30,000 = not categorised (now that's just confusing.)

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Ordnance Survey

"The PointX product uses multiple organisations and third party data sources in order to create the product, and it seems in this instance you have found accuracy issues.   We are always happy to receive this type of information if you are willing to share your findings so we can investigate further internally."*

*— Ordnance Survey Support

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Some principles for sustainable accurate maps (that people will use):

Working with dynamic user-generated content offers a number of benefits: improved stakeholder and user engagement, improved access, diversity and representation, and better overall sustainability.

However, addressing the accuracy problem requires a bit of planning:

  • distribute maintenance work across multiple organisations and partners
  • don't re-invent the wheel, work with familiar data sets and platforms (open street maps!)
  • plan for user engagement and re-engagement around the tool (e.g. host a hack-a-thon!)
  • avoid sabateurs - develop a moderation plan
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We can all agree that getting "on the map" is crucial

But not all possible routes are the same...

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