Note: The original, and unabridged version of this message is a G+ post [0].

If you are monitoring #OpenStreetMap changesets from the #Philippines , you may have noticed a common changeset comment from week 25 of 2015 (15th-19th June or so)

The ResultMaps from neis-one.org report the following outcomes for the hashtag #osmfeu2015 [1] Information for #osmfeu2015 Number of OSM Contributors: 43 Number of Map Changes: 30,218 Total number of Changesets: 1,376

The FEU Institute of Technology [1] and the the Map the Philippines initiative of Ms. Celina Agaton [2] recently concluded a training workshop for FEU Tech affiliates (I.T. and engineering students and faculty) . Also with +Celina Agaton are some of AidData Summer Fellows who are in the Philippines to work along with Celina’s number of mapping initiatives. Amy, Daniella, Emily, Lu and Prabesh [4]. Some OSM-PH mappers participated as facilitators: +Feye Andal (@ feyeandal) +Julius Bañgate (@ jmbangate), +Dianne Bencito (@dichapabe), +Rally de Leon (@rally) and myself,@GOwin.

At the end of the event, we asked for voluntary participants for an anonymous survey and over-all, the participants reported to have had very positive learning experience from the workshop. More than half of the respondents expressed their interesting in doing more field mapping activities. So, if you guys are planning any mapping parties soon, you know where to find them.

And if you find new edits in your area, and they happen to be from the #osmfeu2015 guys, please be gentle with them. For now. :D

The small group discussions had been interesting for me, especially with those who are now considering #OpenSource data from #OpenStreetMap for their own academic or personal projects. I collected baseline contributor data from this workshop and hope to evaluate the effectiveness of the engagement a few months down the road. If any of you are interested in this kind of thing, let me know how we can work together.

We were told that almost a hundred people signed up for the activity. Personally, I am happy to know that there are that many people who find the topic interesting. However, I’m also glad that we didn’t get as much participants because we would have had a rough time managing the class because there weren’t enough experienced mappers who can help facilitate and direct small group discussions.

For the closing activities, we came up with a few interesting awards based on contributor metrics: The Map-chine (for the participant who made the most number of edits during the workshop), The Beast Mapper (for the participant who contributed the most varied type of features, and the JOSM Padawan (for the participant who made the most number of edits using JOSM).

I took a few snaps [5] but expect the workshop organizers to release their official photos soon. :)

Many thanks to the organizers, the host, and to fellow participants who made this possible.

[0] https://plus.google.com/+WinOlario/posts/2bw56neXHC3 [1] http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-changesets?comment=osmfeu2015#5/13.753/122.124 [2] http://www.feutech.edu.ph/ [3] http://aiddata.org/aiddata-summer-fellows [4] https://goo.gl/photos/b7sGziWhrmqJdDCVA