DATA COLLECTORS ARE GETTING SMARTER WITH SMART PHONES

FEATURE

NOV 10, 2010

DATA COLLECTORS ARE GETTING SMARTER WITH SMART PHONES

 Knee deep in the rising waters of Chigwell, a team of volunteers equipped with smart phones roamed the area gathering data.

They took photographs of a flooded banana field and noted the number of flattened trees. The height of water submerging a house was measured and logged. The depth of eroded sections of what was recently a smooth road was measured and photographed. Quietly, every piece of data was given an address on earth and beamed up to an operations centre at Haining Road in Kingston.

The proliferation of Blackberry smart phones in Jamaica proved to be an opportunity for volunteers of the National Emergency Response GIS Team (NERGIST) which is coordinated by the National Spatial Data Management Division (NSDMD) and deployed on call by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM). After the passage of Tropical Storm Nicole in September, Director of Geo Tech Vision Enterprise Limited, and leading Geographical Information Systems (GIS) professional, Valerie Grant Harry, whose company is the local distributor of Freeance, a Geographic Positioning System (GPS) application for the Blackberry smart phone, asked the owners of Freeance for help. In a swift humanitarian response, they gave permission for the public sector of Jamaica to use their intellectual property at no cost.

Deputy co-ordinator of NERGIST, Mark Codling, recalled how the application significantly reduced equipment costs and reduced the time normally needed to train volunteers to use specialised GPS equipment.

"Operating a smart phone with a simple application needs little or no technical skills and there is no need to buy a GPS if the smart phone is already enabled with it. The data sets are collected, loaded on to the smart phone or you send it to a remote data centre via the Internet".

"The team which carried out damage assessment on behalf of ODPEM captured data on the extent of the flooding and levels of damage to buildings. If the affected building is public, such as a clinic or a school, a private business or home, a GPS point for the information is collected, a picture tagged and uploaded straight from the smart phone via satellite to an Internet server. I used the smart phone to capture points in Chigwell, Hanover and also around the Corporate Area," he said.

The Blackberry GPS feature is not significantly different from any other smart phone, but as it is the dominant smart phone in the Jamaican market, it was easy to introduce the GPS application to data collectors across the country. The experience with Freeance, Mr. Codling says, demonstrates the potential for other applications that are developed specifically for Jamaican situations.

"Persons have been talking about developing more GPS applications for our public utilities. For example, a supervisor in the field can create a GPS point indicating damage to say a water pipe and submit it directly to the office where other members of the management team can see it and take action. LIME is currently using this to evaluate their equipment. It is easier as most people are using the same brand of smart phones," he said.  

Mr. Codling says of his team that keeps a register of all GIS data collected by the public sector, which is also shared at no cost within the government service, "we do the relevant quality checks to make sure that the data is of the required standard by the relevant authorities."

Public sector professionals who use spatial data are among the first in Jamaica to put the GPS feature in smart phones to create lasting national value. This urgency by the local corps to use their skills has been recognised by international GIS leader, the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), which has awarded Jamaican companies the Special Achievement in GIS Award almost every year. 

This has been achieved despite the sector having a corps of only 159 GIS professionals positioned in fewer than 30 organisations throughout the island, according to a Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) survey. Of this number, 118 have certification, 16 are graduates and 25 post graduate. To date, only 17 organisations consistently collect and maintain GIS data, most of these are public sector agencies, such as Ministries, and the Electoral Office of Jamaica.

The National Land Information Council of Jamaica (LICJ) is increasing the appreciation of and opportunities for professional development in the field of GIS through its programme of training. In 2009 the LICJ facilitated 52 managers and other executives and 26 teachers and lecturers to receive introductory GIS training. A total of 32 GIS professionals received specific disaster assessment training.