Victoria, FastCopley, Russell2022-05-042022-05-042022-04Copley. R. (2022). Mapping our cities for all as VGI research: completeness and insights of a crowdsourced business accessibility dataset (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114611Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is a form of crowdsourcing which deals with spatial information. Given the spatial nature of accessibility barriers, the proliferation of crowdsourcing apps made by and for disabled people has provided easy-to-interpret repositories for business accessibility information. Claims made with VGI data are related to the dataset’s quality—such as positional accuracy, completeness, temporal accuracy, among others—and our research question answers the ‘completeness’ component of disability advocacy company AccessNow’s dataset. While previous work has theorized the potential of VGI for advancing civil rights or have investigated the utility of OpenStreetMap or Project Sidewalk as viable accessibility platforms, minimal work has applied data quality techniques to such data. Through the joint University of Calgary/AccessNow “Mapping Our Cities for All” (MOCA) initiative, 37 people were hired to map business districts in Vancouver, BC; Calgary, AB; Ottawa, ON; and 17 rural municipalities in Alberta. Using RStudio and ArcGIS Pro, we conducted completeness assessments for all study regions before exploring business accessibility through both spatial and industrial lenses. The findings of the MOCA project are being reported to Accessibility Standards Canada as a first attempt at quantifying our baseline level of accessibility, and which industries and regions could benefit from further investment, to work towards the goal of building a more accessible society.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.Volunteered Geographic InformationData QualityAccessibilityGISGeographymaster thesis10.11575/PRISM/39731