Open Data Alchemy: Making OSM a gem of many facets

OSM is more than a basemap: it’s also a rich source of real data that can be used for visualization, analysis and POI for applications. But learning OSM XML or deploying a Planet file is complicated for many users.  Enter “Koop” (github.com/Esri/Koop), an open source project that enables users to easily consume the OSM dataset, as well as data from external services like Github, Geocommons, and Socrata through a REST API. Koop acts as central access point to any number of APIs and data sources, and provides an implementation of GeoServices REST from any source of structured data.  This means that you can create, distribute, and consume custom OSM feature services for development or for your mobile applications.  We’ll show the free public version of its OSM API for demo & experimentation purposes. We’ll also discuss Esri’s research in combining OSM data with other data through its Community Maps program.  Does bringing together multiple sources make for a more authoritative dataset?  Citizen scientists and businesses want to know!