Dr Guy Solomon

2025

1. Diagnosing spatial and temporal biases of OSM contributors: identifying differences between gender and age from an online survey

   Hyesop Shin, Zoe Garden, Guy Solomon, and 1 more author

   Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Apr 2025

   Abs

   Citizen science projects are open and available to anyone to contribute data. However, the literature concerning volunteered geographic information (VGI) has demonstrated significant demographic participation biases across time and space. Understanding the significance and impacts of these biases is challenging due to privacy concerns, which lead to the (pseudo-)anonymity of contributors. Using a sample of 265 users, this paper statistically analyses edits to the crowdsourced mapping platform OpenStreetMap (OSM) to examine the impact of gender and age on spatial and temporal contribution patterns. We find that men aged in the Others group (i.e. below 25 or over 54) made more contributions during the week and at weekends than those in the Economically Active age group (i.e. age 25-54). Using the Kruskal-Wallis test to compare temporal contributions between gender groups, the Economically Active group showed a significant gender difference on both weekdays and weekends, as well as the hours of the day, with men making more contributions than women regardless of age category. Men in the Others group made the most contributions overall. Calculating the Simpson Index of Diversity for user edits reveals that women have more limited spatial interests (i.e. they contribute to fewer countries) than their male counterparts, suggesting particular spatial preferences by gender.

2024

1. Evaluating Geotemporal Behaviours in OpenStreetMap Contributors

   Guy Solomon, Dominick Sutton, Merve Polat Kayali, and 3 more authors

   Mar 2024

   Abs

   Volunteered Geographic Information (’VGI’) and crowdsourcing are integral for projects such as OpenStreetMap (’OSM’). However, despite the wide use of OSM as one of the most successful crowdsourcing platforms, the under-representation of certain demographic groups amongst those who contribute information may ultimately mean this information favours the interests of some groups over others. This can result in misleading conclusions for analyses conducted on the basis of these data. This paper connects OSM user contributions to demographic data collected via a survey. It shows that, in relation to geographic diversity of contributions, men and women demonstrate distinct trends over time. It then considers the extent to which this observed pattern can be seen as influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, it concludes that there does not appear to be a distinct ’pandemic effect’ divergent from longer-term trends.

2023

1. Assessing the Relationship Between Socio-Demographic Characteristics and OpenStreetMap Contributor Behaviours

   Dominick Sutton, Guy Solomon, Xinyi Yuan, and 3 more authors

   Nov 2023

   Abs

   ’Volunteered Geographic Information’ (VGI) has particular importance - in part - for its democratisation of geographic information. However, some recent research has suggested that despite being publicly open, several successful VGI platforms have under-representation of particular socio-demographic groups, which may lead to biases in the types of information contributed. This paper examines the relationship between demographic characteristics and user contributions to OpenStreetMap (OSM), one of the most successful examples of a project reliant on VGI. It demonstrates statistically significant differences in the information provided by users of different genders, ages, and education-levels. Differences between the demographic characteristics of OSM contributors and the underlying population are therefore likely to be reflected in the VGI contained in OSM.