Summary

These are some verification considerations. (in PDF form)  Also see Uchaguzi Verification Overview for a best practices. (Note this page content was transferred from the retired Ushahidi community site.)

Introduction

One of the challenges of a crowdsourcing tool or indeed any platform that relies on citizen reporting is the issue of verification: How can you tell whether information received is reliable or not? The answer to the question is generally a moving target depending on the context in which Ushahidi is being used. There are no quick solutions to the challenge, but Ushahidi offers a few ways, for instance, to rank the veracity of a particular source of information, and to incentivise users to report accurate information.

Distribute The Information

In most cases, a crowdsourcing tool’s, primary purpose is to help get the information out there. In some cases, it might not always be possible to verify a report, in which case you can mark a report as "unverified", until you receive information that suggests otherwise. If there is any doubt about a report, a good first step would be to mark the report as unverified, until you have the opportunity to investigate further.

Verification Criteria

In general, when you mark a report as verified it should be under the following circumstances:

Before You Verify

Things to avoid and be aware of during the verification process:

Research on verification practices: