The story so far…
Solidarity Economy Association & Shared Assets have formed Digital Commons as a joint venture to take forward our respective mapping and data sharing projects.
Digital Commons will initially act as an umbrella for our two respective mapping platforms – Land Explorer, a mapping platform which helps people find out information about the land around them, and Sea-Map, a mapping tool that supports community-led mapping projects and membership organisations, focussing on social and solidarity economy organisations.
Digital Commons will also develop itself as an advocate for and broker of better data standards and sharing protocols in the broad “commons” economy.
We are derived from three different softwares:
Cooperatives Connect
Cooperatives Connect is an online platform using ‘Semantic Web’ technology, created to help the cooperative movement connect, communicate and collaborate. This extensive directory of cooperatives will be accessible via the Internet at no cost and can serve as an easy way to locate and engage with fellow cooperatives in every continent.
The ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) and domains.coop are partnering with the Solidarity Economy Association (SEA) to launch this project.
A filterable and searchable directory of the ICA’s members displayed on a world map. It is multilingual, supporting the ICA’s 3 international languages.
There are many services one can use to display membership information and many mapping platforms. What is different about what we have done?
- We are using open source mapping technology – not google maps, which we believe treats its users data in ways inconsistent with co-operative values.
- We are using common data standards.
- The data is not just published on maps but in a range of formats to make it as easy as possible for other projects to have easy machine or human readable access to that data.
Land Explorer
Land Explorer is a mapping tool to help people and projects get information on the land around them.
With Land Explorer you can find suitable sites for your project and provide insight or evidence for your community-based development.
Twine
Twine Volunteer is a free mobile app helping your volunteers record their contributions without any paperwork, and helping you better understand the work they’re doing. It’s a hassle-free way to keep tabs on your activities and projects and how much time and effort each requires
The Digital Commons Cooperative 