State of the Map Kerala 2025/Programs/School Mapping

Non-reviewed meeting minutes

Ranjith:

    - School Wiki started in 2008

    - Later Shabareesh mash made a serious effort at bringing in data

    - Then there was a request to add map of school. Initially Google Maps was used. But later it became expensive to use.

    - OSM was used because of that.

    - KSDA initiative to map Kerala has helped and also created problems.

    - Roads to schools, etc were mapped thanks to this.

    - Government also recognized the need for mapping

    - Now, the state of map in OSM is better

    - The community meetups are growing starting from 2022 and now at the state of map Kerala.

    - There's been request for creating modules for learning, but the kind of community needed for that is low

    - Why use OSM?

        - free access to data

        - not requiring to purchase expensive maps from government

        - otherwise will have to use google maps data which creates problems in doing studies and independent research

    - Short term goal: Making data available

    - Long term goal: Introducing maps in school textbooks itself.  How decisions are arrived at using maps (climate, disaster, etc)

Subin: We had in our school wikimapia, QGIS, etc

Manoj: Wikimapia has been removed. It was initially thought as a wiki project, but we got misled. Although it was crowd-sourced, it wasn't freely licensed.

Vijayan:

    - we have data from 2010s... There could be problems with the data quality.

    - sources: KMLs, wikiloves school, sametam portal

Ranjith:

    - Sametam portal has link to google maps and to school wiki

    - Not perfect

KML file is from  an SSK project from earlier. There has been several changes since 2010

WIkiloves school project has photos of schools, and wherever lat+long is enabled, we get the coordinates there.

Hasanar: Two needs:

    - make perfect map in schoolwiki

    - our own server with our own information management, to enable government officers to reach there

    - we have the machinery to create data.

Manoj:

    - what we have done with wikidata is Jinoee etc have scraped existing data (from schoolwiki, etc) and uploaded to wikidata

    - We have to create an authoritative data source with links to various portal, internal IDs, etc. It should include GPS data, photo data,

Vijayan: There is code duplication for about 800 schools. Higher secondary and high school have the same code, for example.

.....: When we go to pareeksha bhavan, this problem is not there. Because we have unique codes there.

Manoj: We just need a project where people put the data together and check what's the gap. Once we get to a table, we can do it.

Ranjith: The problem is in finding discrepancy. About 90% schools have data. But 30-40% has errors. This can only be identified by going to each and every point. A small team can do.

Vijayan: All we need is school level lat, long.

Manoj: We can't start another project for data collection. Let people correct school wiki data. This can be given as assigned.

Hasanar: What data is needed? Lat, long. What else?

VIjayan: Code, name, lat+long.

Manoj: From wiki we can pull.  We can then do a checking system.

Hasanar:

    - a procedure to update schoolwiki

    - a procedure to add school photo to wiki

    - a procedure to update sametam data

Ranjith showed how lat long is stored in schoolwiki now.

Manoj:

    - we can just ask the state machinery to update these data

VIjayan: Unaided schools about 100 haven't come

Manoj: Every school will be on openstreetmap. In the next phase, we have to map the buildings, gardens, etc. Open routing, etc is automatic

Ranjith: On going full screen in slippymap on schoolwiki, we can move to google maps, bing maps, etc. MT can check if they're all corresponding.

Manoj: we can create an interface to even verify

Manoj: can we create a pipeline to get data out of schoolwiki

Hasanar: The problem with data is that a lot of duplication has been done by copy-pasting templates from other schools.

Hasanar: If we get a sheet to fill, we can finish it in one week after getting it.

Vijayan: Only if we get a government notice saying MT has to update the schoolwiki location.

Hasanar: If we give a procedure, we can get it done

Ranjith: Only duplication we can find using machine. Wrong location has to be validated manually.

Hasanar: Mapping activity. We have in textbook  https://samagra.kite.kerala.gov.in/files/samagra-resource/uploads2/tbookscmq/Class_VII/IT_7_M/1-64.pdf  But we can't put into osm .org because kashmir was having wrong map in that. osm . in can be used.

Hasanar: We should be very careful about map when we put it in textbook. We're using edited maps in many tools. In school maps, we can put it into textbook because it is Kerala level only.

Subin: What if we set up a sandbox server for kids to edit.

Vijayan: First task is to update schoolwiki

Arun Ganesh showed Bharat Maps

schoolgis, UDISE

Schoolgis data via UDISE via BCR program.

Every school has UDISE code. There are also unaided. But this is central government's data

Manoj to Vijayan: Please add people to group

Some more ideas were discussed.

Rajaneesh: Pool data crowdsourced from kids.