Create a plan and take action to create a collaborative map
Step one: Understand and plan for the needs of your collaborative map
- Who are the stakeholders that can share the information needed for your project?
- What features are most appropriate for the information needed: markers, lines or polygons? What additional observed or annotated data is needed?
- When can a training be scheduled? When do you want to complete your collaborative map?
- Where can you hold a training that has the internet bandwidth to support multiple computers?
- How will you support various levels of technological knowhow?
Step two: Decide if you will be providing in-person training for your stakeholders to learn collaborative mapping. If training is not possible or unnecessary, skip to step 4.
Step three: Hold a collaborative mapping training session
- Provide or request that stakeholders bring laptops or tablets and have a pre-existing Google account
- Add stakeholder Google account email addresses to a pre-made Google My Maps map
- Demonstrate how markers, lines and polygons can be added and how icons and colors can be edited
- Change the sharing permissions if stakeholders need permission to share the map with additional viewers or editors after leaving the training session
Step four: Collaborate in-person or virtually on your map