Crowd Sourcing Used to Collect W&OD Data in Loudoun

Anyone planning to use the Washington and Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) now has a new online resource because of a partnership between the Loudoun County Government and AOL.

[Editor’s note: AOL owns Patch.] 

As part of a company service project, AOL employees in Dulles facility fanned out along the trail on bicycles in May. Working with staff from the Loudoun County Office of Mapping and Geographic Information (OMAGI) and the W&OD Regional Park – which is owned by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority – the AOL employees used cell phones to obtain GIS coordinates and photos of amenities, such as covered shelters, picnic tables and water fountains, and points of interests such as heritage signs, mile markers, and trail crossings. About 270 data points were collected.

The use of the public to obtain such data is called crowd-sourcing.

“This is the first time we’ve used crowd-sourcing to add to the county’s data on public facilities,” said Larry Stipek, Loudoun OMAGI Director. “We hope to expand the use of crowd-sourced data collection to enhance the geographic information available to the public.”