Hosting your first event? Been a while since you’ve hosted a mapathon? Here are helpful tips and resources for organizing an in-person mapathon, from recruiting participants, logistics on the day, to follow up.
You’ll want to get familiar with the tools you’ll be teaching your volunteer group. First, create an OpenStreetMap account and practice mapping. We recommend starting in your own community. This way you’ll already know what you are documenting, so you are best prepared to focus on this new tool. Once you are comfortable with OSM, try mapping for a humanitarian project using the Tasking Manager. Don’t forget to read and follow the instructions for the specific project you choose. Once you’ve mapped about five squares, you should feel more comfortable with the tool. OSM has millions of active editors located all around the world, so if you have a question about appropriate tagging or specifically about the tool, try giving it a google. This will help you reach the correct wiki page for your specific question. Most people feel comfortable after playing with these tools for an afternoon.
Share this hand-out (virtually or printed) with your attendees to create OpenStreetMap accounts and complete the walkthrough. Signing up a large number of people for OpenStreetMap accounts can take time! Therefore, we highly recommend asking your attendees to sign up ahead of time, if possible.
Use this brief guide to plan your event! For more detailed information and resources, we recommend checking out the Missing Maps Hosting a Mapathon resource page.
There are even more good ideas for event planning on the OSM Mapping Weekend HOWTO wiki page.
Teachers & instructors working in a classroom setting should see TeachOSM for guidance on bringing OSMGeoweek projects into their classroom.
Interested in participating? Email osmgeoweek@openstreetmap.us to learn more. Visit this site's Github repository