Texting and Mapping for

Ana Brandusescu, Renée E. Sieber and Sylvie Jochems

1

The Challenges of Integrating

Texting and Mapping for

Community Development in

Canada

 CD: A process where community members collaborate

by means of an organized intervention with the goal

of empowering them vis-à-vis circumstances that

affect their lives

(Lyndon 2011)

 Mobile phones are already in communities

 Case studies in developing world: Mobile banking,

epidemiology, fishing & agriculture industries

(e Silva et al.

2011; Tortora & Rheault 2011; Aker & Mbiti 2010; Bailard 2009; Molony 2009; Patnaik et al. 2008; Wong 2008;

Abraham 2007)

 Few North American case studies; even fewer that are

youth-based

(Rice et al. 2008; Walsh et al. 2998; Campbell 2006; Ito 2005)

 Texting with online & mobile mapping combination

 Challenges: Building and maintaining an ICT for CD

Literature Review

Sieber, Elwood,

Ghose, Goodchild

Foth, Albert, Flournoy,

Lebrasseur, Loos,

Mante-Meijer, Haddon,

Marshall, Taylor, Yu

McKnight, Kretzmann,

Block, Lyndon,

Goodchild

Katz, Donner, Proulx

Yzer & Southwell,

Hardey, Horst &

Miller, Aker & Mbiti,

e Silva (A.S), Sutko,

Salis, e Silva (C.S)

Lyndon, Burns,

Williams,

Windenbank,

Jones & Silva,

Shragge & Toye

Blackburn-Cabrera,

Kayne, Clement,

Gurstein, Longford,

Moll, Shade, Gov’t

of Canada

Zook, Graham, Shelton,

Gorman, Chiao, Roche,

Propeck-Zimmermann,

Mericskay, Forrest

Rice, Lee, Taitt,

Boone, Campbell,

Walsh, White,

Young, Ito

Community

Development

Community

Mapping

Participatory

GIS

Community

Informatics

Telecom

Youth &

ICTs

Crisis

mapping

ICTs

(mobile tech)

Context: Lachine, Montreal

 Why is it generalizable?

 Inner-city neighbourhood of Montreal; 7,340

low-income residents (18 % of Lachine pop.)

(Statistics Canada 2007)

 Table de Concertation Jeunesse de Lachine

 Technology project for youth

15

2

Developing the Mapping Portion of

the Application

Ushahidi:

 Technical expertise;

coding knowledge

 Web server-based

Crowdmap:

 Less technical version

of Ushahidi (no coding

knowledge required)

 Cloud-based

 For less-technical

experts

 Friendly user interface

Acquiring the Hardware

 SIM card from mobile provider with GSM network

 Hardware must be compatible with software:

FrontlineSMS

 CDMA network vs. GSM network

 GSM modem

 ‘Unlocking’ modem procedure

5

Developing the Texting Portion of

the Application

FrontlineSMS

Crowdmap Addon/Plugin

3 ways to enable SMSs on Crowdmap

5,6

Enabling Messages Sent to

Espaces Lachine

1. SMS

2. Smartphone app

3. Email

4. Twitter

5. Direct post on website

4

7

Diffusing the Application

1. Storyboards (EN/FR)

2. SMS examples on poster

3. Manuals

8,9

10

2

Collecting Geolocated Texts

 Send emails

 Hand out flyers

 Create posters

Preliminary data

Becoming a System Administrator

 Web 2.0 deployments: Ushahidi and Crowdmap

 Mashable tools for crises, with little time to develop

and deploy the system

 Ushahidi Setup vs. All the Other Stuff

 “Verification, documentation,

integration with other

systems, SMS debugging,

& taxonomy development”

Contending with Resource

Availability

1. Restrictions and lack of availability exist in telecom

hardware used to receive SMSs on Crowdmap

2. Cloud-based SMS gateway Clickatell offers no phone

numbers with area codes in Canada

3. Rogers mobile provider has a “Rogers One Number”

SMS gateway but does not provide integration APIs

4. FrontlineSMS is solely GSM network-based, limiting

interoperability with hardware from other telecom

networks (e.g., CDMA)

Obtaining a Geolocation from an

SMS

1. Parsing of geolocations in the SMSs:

–

Texting-mapping platform does not automatically geolocate

SMSs

–

E.g., Chez Brandusescu

–

160 character SMS limit

2. Inferring location demands human intervention

–

Description of place

–

E.g., Weather, sculpture in (unnamed) park

3. Certain methods of sending messages were more effective

than others

–

participants had to manually enter the URL to see their

messages: https://espaceslachine.crowdmap.com

Confronting the Nature of

Canadian Mobile Network Providers

 Telecom environment in Canada

 Finding the right provider; GSM vs. CDMA

 Interoperability with FrontlineSMS

 Library of Congress, ‘unlocking’ of mobile phones

illegal in US (January 26, 2013)

Keeping Pace with Change

 Table struggled to keep pace with changes during

application development

 Application development and deployment will likely

exceed the time needed to acquire the actual texts;

Crowdmap platform was less generalizable than

expected

 From Classic Crowdmap to New Crowdmap (public

beta): ‘Map Anything’

Conclusion

 Mobile phones for CD: Big data, texting-only, handset

access, sociological studies of phone use

(e.g., e Silva et al. 2011)

 Small data focus & in-house texting application

 Promises of Web 2.0 and mobile technologies

 Should we even try?

 Mobile phones: Connection to physical community when

time limits the physical connection

 Value to be an early technological adapter

 Early adoption involves risk

Thank You!

Email: ana.brandusescu@mail.mcgill.ca

Twitter: @anabrandusescu

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[8] http://www.frontlinesms.com/ for FrontlineSMS symbol (\o/) [9] http://www.ushahidi.com/ for Ushahidi symbol (globe))