Basically the idea is to enrich the data in OpenStreetMap using crowdsourcing then use that as input to a survey about building usage.
They considered setting up their own server and thought about alternatives to OSM but in the end decided on OSM.
There is a group called HOT which does humanitarian mapping using OSM and the Stats Canada work is hoping to use some of their crowdsourcing tools such as tiles you mark completed when you've mapped the tile.
OSM is a very bottom up organisation completely different to Stats Canada which is sort of top down. I worked there for a number of years so know both cultures and I've been working with the project manager at Stats Canada.
Tracy was invited to one of the meetings they had early on and we talked there about importing data from the City of Ottawa. After Tracey's comments the comment from the Stats Canada management was "Well you've completely turned our ideas round on how to approach this."
So there are three parts to this, first since Stats has let the mapping community know what they would like mapping and how they would like it tagged some mappers have been adding / enriching the map using existing tools such as JOSM. Second adding in Open Data to OSM and strangely enough is not that easy to do. OSM has some mappers in Germany especially who take exception to Open Data and imports. There has been one who took it upon themself to delete data imported from CANVEC on the grounds it wasn't perfect. It was up to 40 years old and didn't align with more recent work. Rivers change course over time and the CANVEC data is still the best available for the north of Canada.
The final part will be setting up a more user friendly editor based on the iD editor which is heavily used by HOT when crowdsourcing with new mappers.
All this needs to be bilingual of course and that strangely enough is one of OSM's strengths. Ottawa in particular if you use the right settings in OSM and you can have Ottawa in French even rue Sparks.
Will it go smoothly? Probably not but it stands a much better chance after a touch of Tracey.
Cheerio John
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