OSM CoCreation
Impacts of Corporate Editing on Collective Intelligence in OpenStreetMap
Research Question
Why is this important to answer?
Corporate-led maintainer teams, equipped with extensive resources and technological infrastructure, have the potential to make substantial contributions to open source and open data projects. Yet, their involvement can have both positive and negative effects, shaping the behavior and participation of other contributors. In OpenStreetMap (the world’s leading open geodata project) this dynamic is a source of ongoing debate, while current research provides limited insights into the impacts. This research project seeks to bridge that knowledge gap by examining how corporate contributions influence collective intelligence and decision-making within OpenStreetMap. The results will offer valuable guidance to both corporate actors as well as the broader bottom-up community about the long-term effects of such engagement.