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onfiguration and 
renders much of 
existing urban infrastructure information useless and out-dated. 
At the same time, information about infrastructure health is vital 
as a large part of rescue operations make use of roads, bridges 
and tunnels. Finding the shortest route in a city stricken by a 
natural disaster is a complicated operation that is no longer a 
function of distance and travel time only, but also of the 
infrastructure state. Obtaining up-to-date infrastructure 
information quickly is important, but also very challenging due 
the large extent of urban areas and the lack manpower. 
Airborne and satelliteborne observation techniques seem to offer 
a solution but challenges lurk there too. Although the coverage 
of remote sensing images is sufficient, it is not always possible 
to make observations due to clouds, bad weather or simply 
because some damages can only be observed and assessed from 
the ground. Turning this data into useful information requires a 
considerable amount of time and effort from specialized 
personnel. What is thus needed is a complementary sensor 
network of some kind that is capable of performing 
infrastructure health measurements that can be used to aid the 
routing process. 
Two things suggest outsourcing data collection to the crowd: 1) 
the task at hand is not overly complex and 2) a large group of 
people is willing and able to help. Goodchild (2007) recognizes 
the crowd's potential by highlighting that each individual is in 
essence a sensor, while the crowd as a whole forms a sensor 
network. Laituri and Kodrich (2008), and Shirky (2009) show 
that the crowd is capable of more than data collection only. 
Citizens and other non-specialists can greatly support collection 
of ground information if they are provided with appropriate 
tools. Heipke (2010) furthermore notes that data collected by 
local mappers and observers tends to be of higher quality than 
information gathered by someone from abroad who is not 
familiar with the environment. 
21 Internet for ODRC 
Disaster management is seen to be the task of official 
organizations such as governments and humanitarian non- 
governmental none-profit organizations. Until now, these 
institutions have largely remained off the internet. Laituri and 
Kodrich (2008) identify a move towards usage of internet 
technologies in the form of online disaster-response 
communities (ODRC). They identify three tiers. The first tier 
consists of a network of traditional national and international 
organisations that are responsible for raising awareness and 
financial funds prior to the occurrence of a disaster. 
The second tier holds the groups and organizations that respond 
immediately after a disaster strikes. This tier is largely filled by 
Organizations. from the first tier. Instead of raising awareness, 
they are now coordinating action. Since recent y cars, the second 
tier is expanding to house informal organizations and networks 
that wish to contribute to disaster management and rescue 
Operations. Their activities involve using internet and social 
Media to share information about the disasters in the form of 
pictures, blogs, videos, wiki's and links to official sources of 
information. 
The third tier is using the internet technology for more than 
information distribution only. This tier consists of technology 
savvy volunteers who are able to collect geograp hical 
information and/or build geospatial analysis tools that aid 
during, but also after the disaster management process. 
Examples of these endeavours are the OpenStreetMap mappers, 
Ushahidi creators and users, and communities such as Crisis 
Mappers! and CrisisCommons?. Third tier contributions and 
tools are not limited to geographical information and 
"traditional" sensing and observation techniques, but include 
new and cutting edge technologies. For instance, the 2011 Japan 
carthquake and nuclear power plant failure have moved people 
to install Geiger counters and stream the measurements to the 
world through Pachube?. OpenStreetM ap can be put in the same 
light as being more than an aggregation of GPS tracks. Some 
parts are synthesized from satellite images by the process of 
digitization ie. people tracing roads and rivers over satellite 
images. The "crowd" is thus capable of more than data collection 
only, it is able and willing to perform more complex task such as 
mapping, geographical analysis and programming. 
2.2 Crowdsourcing 
Crowdsourcing is the coming together of a diverse (in terms of 
knowledge, background, specialisation and interests) group of 
people who, using modern internet technology, perform 
complex tasks that normally are performed by specialists and 
professionals (Goodchild 2007, Goodchild 2010, Laituri and 
Kodrich 2008). Crowdsourcing has become possible due to 
recent advances in internet technology and specifically due to 
advances in communication technologies (Shirky 2009). Social 
media such as blogs, wikis, Twitter and Facebook have 
increased ease of communication by providing more and better 
streamlined communication channels thereby reducing the 
transaction cost (in terms of spent time and money) of 
communicating with other people (Shirky 2009). This decrease 
in communication transaction cost results in the emergence of 
highly dispersed but effective loosely organized groups of 
people who share a common interest and work towards a 
common goal. Social media technologies allow groups to self- 
organize and manage, thereby removing the need for a managerial 
layer that is inherent to large organizations. Such a group 
becomes cheaper, thereby allowing them to undertake tasks 
previously deemed too expensive in terms of time, money and 
manpower. The loose organization keeps the group flexible and 
agile, allowing them to quickly adapt to changing situations. The 
reduction in transaction cost enables "everyone to communicate 
with everyone" thereby exposing the product under 
development to many eyes and as many disciplines and 
expertise. The total amount of knowledge and expertise 
increases which in turn allows the completion of complex tasks 
  
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