Comments on: Crowdsourcing vs Experts: Assessing Technological Approaches to Conflict Monitoring

By: Nat Walker

Nat Walker — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:22:08 +0000

Mara, thanks so much. This is interesting. I have just been introduced to USHAHIDI and I just started using it for my work. It is a good tool for mapping (not necessarily monitoring) crisis.
We are using it here for elections violence reporting and for displaying early warning alerts from around the country. I have not really taken the time to look at the weaknesses as mentioned in your article until now. What I can say is that despite these, I am still finding the system useful. To do an in-depth analysis of conflicting situation especially when looking at trends and patterns, the use of a variety of tools is needed. For me, USHAHIDI has the potential of being one of those tools that can be very useful when analyzing; and for my early warning work, I can have alerts from USHHAHIDI in real time that I can in turn use to alert response actors cloth with the authority to take necessary action.
Working in Liberia as an early warning consultant, I coordinate a network of organizations using the USHAHIDI platform. One major potential weakness in the system we noticed from the very beginning had to do with credibility of information appearing on the map. We felt that to ensure credibility of all of the information appearing, we had to ensure that there was inaccuracy in all of the reports. We therefore set up from within the group a verification task force. The taskforce set criteria for verifying information that appears on the map. It meets regularly to approve and or verify reports. If anyone is interested in this process, I will be happy to say more when contacted. In any case, thanks Mara for making me to reflect on the usefulness of USHAHIDI to my work.

By: Mara J. Roberts

Mara J. Roberts — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:53:08 +0000

Alan,

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I agree that one map in the case of Egypt, would have been the simplest route. I can also see how the Ushahidi staff would be excited about multiple conflict assessments maps for the Egypt election in 2010 and violence in 2011. In general, I do see this as a potential weakness.

As to your question, Egypt’s urban areas are ideally suited for Ushahidi. So it would be hard to not use it in this location. But, my recommendation for monitoring election violence would be to implement both an Ushahidi-style conflict map AND an SMS surveillance utilizing experts. A tool using both methods would capture the benefits of both monitoring systems.

By: Alan Smith

Alan Smith — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:29:28 +0000

Very interesting piece. Thank you for your perspective. I agree that multiple Ushahidi maps could be good or could be bad depending on how they are used. If the various maps “corroborate” as Brian mentions, it seems like having just one, centralized map would be the easiest and follow the wisdom of KISS (keep it simple stupid).

I can see that, especially in the case of monitoring election violence in places like Burundi, that using SMS with experts who have cell phones would be the way to go. But would you recommend this method over the Ushahidi method in more developed locations like Egypt?

By: Crowdsourcing vs Experts: Assessing Technological Approaches to Conflict Monitoring « New Dominion Philanthrophy Metrics

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:20:55 +0000

[…] This piece was originally published on the Peacebuilder blog […]

By: Mara J. Roberts

Mara J. Roberts — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:26:04 +0000

Hi Brian,

Thank you for your comment. You bring up a good point: if the five conflict maps had their data linked, this could create a stronger understanding of the conflict. But I do not think this occurred in Egypt.

By: Brian Gumm

Brian Gumm — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:35:36 +0000

This is a great post, Mara; thanks for submitting it. The only thing I'd like to point out is about one of your links, the one talking about the five versions of the conflict/revolution situation going on in Egypt earlier this year (http://owni.eu/2010/12/08/quick-stop-all-ushahidi-deployments-in-egypt/). Actually, now that I look at the date of that post, it was posted before the revolution...so I wonder if the 5 instances were still going when the revolution broke out? Anyway, back to my original point... First of all, the tone of the entire post is one of sarcasm. So all the things the author is saying are "bad" are actually "good" (this becomes somewhat more obvious as you continue through the piece). I'm not assuming you missed the sarcasm, but it might be easy for others to miss it if they don't read carefully. So actually, the good thing about five versions of a Ushahidi-based conflict map is that you get some dimension of corroboration. And as the author points out, this will become increasingly helpful as various instances of Ushahidi maps around a particular conflict will eventually be able to "talk to each other" behind the scenes, building an automated distributed network view of a conflict. Now, the weaknesses you rightly identify in your post are still at play in a situation like this. Limits to access and quality of crowdsourced information will continue to be potential pitfalls, even in a distributed network of Ushahidi maps.

By: The Next Generation Conflict Monitoring System: People and Technology – Peacebuilder Online

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:40:52 +0000

[…] This is the first of a two-part series on the use of technology in monitoring conflict (see part two).] […]