Engaging indigenous people as geo-crowdsourcing sensors for ecotourism mapping via mobile data collection: a case study of the Royal Belum state park

Abstract

Web 2.0 and the proliferation of built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) on smartphones have influenced the increase of geo-crowdsourcing activities in a number of different contexts. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of indigenous people’s use of mobile collection applications that are embedded in a smartphone to facilitate ecotourism asset mapping. In order to achieve this, field usability testing was conducted where structured observational method was used to assess the performance. The findings indicate majority of them can complete the data entry tasks using mobile data collection. The performance of data entries using radio button, icons, camera and audio methods were identified as better than free text and drop-down list methods. There was a correlation between the level of education with the ability of using radio button, drop-down list and image icon as data entry methods. The paper also discusses the extent of local knowledge relating to ecotourism within the community. The findings should be useful in the understanding of the design of mobile geo-crowdsourcing tools for use within other contexts that focus on data collection by semiliterate and indigenous groups.