The HOT Tasking Manager is an open mapping coordination tool that enables volunteers worldwide to add data to OpenStreetMap (OSM) in a structured way.
It is used by OSM communities, humanitarian organizations, local governments, and others to coordinate remote mapping efforts after disasters and to support resilience building.
The Tasking Manager allows many individuals to work simultaneously on the same area, ensuring projects can be completed quickly and efficiently through coordinated remote collaboration. And you can contribute too!
It is no problem if you have never mapped on the HOT Tasking Manager before. It doesn’t take long to learn – just about an afternoon!
Go to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s Tasking Manager website to create an account.
Follow the link in the email they send to confirm your account.
Go to the Tasking Manager to find a project and task that interests you.
Learn how to lock a task to edit, select an editing program and change the background settings.
Note: when your task is reviewed, you’ll get an email. Make sure to give those a read.
Buildings are one of the most useful things you can add to OpenStreetMap (and they’re fun too)!
Learn how to add and edit buildings to OSM through the iD editor.
Roads are also one of the most useful things you can add to OpenStreetMap!
Learn how to add and edit roads to OSM through the iD editor.
Ready to try it yourself?
JOSM is a powerful OpenStreetMap editing tool that will supercharge your mapping abilities!
We recommend that mappers who want to take their mapping to the next level progress to using this tool.
First, you’ll need to download the application. You can do that here.
This application is available for both Macs and PCs. Compared to iD Editor, the setup process can be no picnic, so give yourself time to navigate this new tool before you plan to jump into your mapping.
Once you are using JOSM you’ll never look back!
Validation is an important part of the Missing Maps process. Getting a second, third, or fourth pair of eyes on mapped features goes a long way in ensuring the quality of data being added to OpenStreetMap and being used in vulnerable communities around the world.
Validating requires confidence in your mapping abilities as well as the willingness to help coach and advise newer mappers.
The Missing Maps Project is a community of mappers with different levels of mapping experience, all who have a common goal of improving the availability of quality data for humanitarian use.
The second important part of validation is providing feedback to mappers. Let them know we got their back, point them out the right way how to improve and encourage them for the great work they are doing.
Validating isn’t for everyone; validation requires patience and attention to detail.
Some experience mapping in OpenStreetMap and HOT projects is a must, but don’t feel that you need to be an expert to start.
If you’re new to Missing Maps or OpenStreetMap mapping in general, head over to our resources for new mappers.
Check out our Validation FAQs to gain some insight on what validating entails.
Becoming a more efficient mapper is crucial to becoming a validator. The JOSM Editor is a customizable editor for OpenStreetMap with a number of tools and plugins to make mapping and validating easier!
Check out this guide to validation using the JOSM editor. For instruction setting up JOSM, you can also head over to LearnOSM.
Yes, validating is also possible with iD Editor, but we recommend using JOSM since it is much more effective and has many data quality tools and features that are not possible with iD Editor.
Watch this HOT Training webinar for Introduction into validation:
The best way to get in touch with other validators and the humanitarian mapping community is joining the HOTOSM Slack.
There are dedicated channels for validation, tasking manager updates, JOSM support and many more!
While there are many ways to do validation, the most effective is live validation during a mapathon.
You get to know the community and you give feedback directly to the mapper on the event in real time as they are mapping.
You can see a list of them in the Events Calendar.
From everyone at Missing Maps, thanks for keeping your eye on data quality.
Happy Mapping!
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