The Development Seed team is excited to announce that OSM Teams v2.0 is now available at mapping.team. OSM Teams provides a platform and an independent authentication API framework for creating teams and roles in the OpenStreetMap ecosystem. The platform's latest update includes a newly designed and user-friendly UI, enhanced API functionality, and improved metadata options.
Community is fundamental to OpenStreetMap. OSM Teams is a way to manage groups of mappers and build community, enabling improved collaboration and higher quality contributions. When we initially launched OSM Teams in 2019, we set out to create the smallest possible MVP of an “API glue,” which would allow groups of OSM users to collaborate across the OSM ecosystem. Today, our initial vision for the application has expanded to include organizations that can manage multiple teams, provide a centralized location to store and access team member attributes, and further the use of the OSM Teams API to connect with other 3rd party applications.
There is a lot to love about the new changes in the application, and we detail some of the features, functionality, and new look and feel below. Even more exciting is how the application is already being used. We’ve worked closely with YouthMappers to accelerate their workflows and enable the more efficient organization of global mapping teams. Our team collaborates closely with the HOT Tasking Manager team to integrate OSM Teams into the tasking process. The integration with the HOT Tasking Manager will allow users and organizations to sync their teams between OSM teams and the tasking manager. Keep an eye on this space to find out as soon as the Teams - Tasking Manager integration is live.
What's New
New changes in OSM Teams permit greater insight into who is mapping for a team and more detailed views into who team members are. We’ve added organizations that can manage and own multiple teams under a single group. New metadata options permit granular control of privacy around each attribute; for example, a team manager can request team member emails but have these remain private to the team or visible only to team managers.
UI and Workflow Improvements
The new design of v2 offers a cleaner and more streamlined interface, making it easier to create and join teams. The navigation has also been simplified, with intuitive workflows for creating new projects and inviting team members. OSM Teams 2.0 includes improved search and table control capabilities, which will help users to find the teams and projects they are looking for more easily. Users can now filter by location, making finding the teams that align with their interests simpler.
Invite new team members
Team managers can now add members via an invitation link unique to each team. The API's capabilities have also been extended to make it easier for developers to build custom integrations, including adding and managing data layers. Managers may now add users by username, eliminating the need to know a user’s OSM ID and making the process much faster and easier.
Get your data, and keep it too
For organized mapping teams who want to collect more information from their members, OSM Teams now permits individual team and user data collection while offering granular data privacy controls. Team moderators and organization owners may create additional profile details or require certain information included in a form on the profile or team creation process. These details can include member contact information, team descriptions and data sources, and team contact information. Teams and organizations can keep this information visible only to team leaders or expose it to the whole team, organization, or publicly. All of these controls are available on each attribute.
Recognize Member Achievements
Team managers and organization owners can now create badges to recognize team members' achievements or to label members as a certain internal role. Badges can be permanent, like “alumni” or “team mascot,” or set to expire, like “mapper of the month.”
OSM Teams 2.0 is a significant update that delivers several enhancements to improve the user experience. The new UI and workflow improvements, enhanced search and filtering capabilities, expanded API, and improved metadata options will help users collaborate more effectively and efficiently. We hope the OSM community and beyond will appreciate these updates, and we look forward to seeing their positive impact on collaborative mapping efforts.
The mission of YouthMappers is to “cultivate a generation of young leaders to create resilient communities and to define their world by mapping it.” The previous approach to YouthMappers’ chapter organization was the same of many organized mapping teams; the creation and shared maintenance of spreadsheets - lots of spreadsheets.
When YouthMappers discovered the OSM Teams project, they immediately recognized the value this would bring to their process. Today, 235 YouthMappers chapters are organized through OSM Teams with over 500 members. New chapter members are immediately added to teams on OSM Teams to ensure that their contributions are tracked in the YouthMappers Activity dashboard. Alumni can be tracked via OSM Teams badges, also available on the OSM Teams API for further data aggregation and analysis.
Come Talk to us at State of the Map US!
We will be at SOTM US to speak more about our work on OSM Teams and other applications in the OSM ecosystem. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Look for Development Seed engineers Marc Farra, Wille Marcel, and Vitor George to learn more.
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