Friday 7 August 2009

Ordnance Survey Licence Renewal

On 1 August 2009, the Ordnance Survey Data Sub-Licence Agreement was extended and amended by a Variation Agreement. If institutions wish to continue their subscription to Digimap's Ordnance Survey Collection, the Variation Agreement must be signed and returned by Wednesday 30 September 2009. Institutions not submitting renewal forms by this date will have access to the service removed. There will be no exceptions to this. Details of how to re-subscribe are given on the JISC Collections website.

When an institution re-subscribes to Digimap's Ordnance Survey Collection, it agrees to the terms of the Ordnance Survey Data Sub-Licence Agreement AND the Variation Agreement. Some of the clauses in the Sub-Licence Agreement are superseded by those in the Variation Agreement. Both documents must be read in conjunction with one another, since one is not valid without the other.

EDINA has drawn up a set of Frequently Asked Questions to help you understand what the the Sub-Licence and Variation Agreements will permit in terms of map and data usage. These can be found at: http://edina.ac.uk/digimap/support/faq_oslicence.html


The following is a summary of the changes which are brought into effect on 1 August 2009 by the Variation Agreement. The original Sub-Licence Agreement holds good unless it has been amended by the Variation Agreement. Please read the Variation Agreement itself for full details of the amendments.


  1. The definition of Authorised User has changed. An individual must fulfill three conditions in order to be an Authorised User. Individuals must:
    1. be a student of, staff (both current or retired) of, or visitor to an Authorised Institution
    2. be authorised by an Authorised Institution to access the Authorised Institution's electronic information services via secure authentication; and
    3. be registered with EDINA Digimap

    Overseas Students are also specifically excluded from being Authorised Users, unless they are resident within the UK. Check the wording of the Variation Agreement carefully. Note also that it is the institution's responsibility to ensure that students who are not eligible for access to this service are not given the means to access it. Under the UK Federation, EDINA is not able to check eligibility.

  2. All references to Athens have been superseded by references to the UK Access Management Federation.

  3. Class Registration is no longer possible. This has been the case since the introduction of the UK Access Management Federation in August 2008, but has now been formalised in this Variation Agreement. Assigning one username to more than one individual (as per a Class registrations) is not permitted under UK Federation policy.

  4. Authorised Users are now explicitly permitted to share data with other Authorised Users, either in the same or another Authorised Institution. This was previously implicit, but has now been made explicit. Sharing data between Authorised Institutions is still subject to completion of the Transfer of Data form as specified in the original Sub-Licence Agreement (Schedule 7, section 8.1)

  5. The Permissible Publication Sizes have been amended. These now offer a significant improvement on the previous restrictions to the size of maps published. For example, it is now possible to publish a map of Great Britain in electronic format. Please read Schedule 2 of the Variation Agreement for specific details of the new rules.

  6. Two new datasets have been included in the agreement: MiniScale® and the 1:250,000 Scale Colour Raster. A full list of products available can be found on the EDINA website.

Both the Sub-Licence Agreement and the Variation Agreement are available from EDINA's website:

Questions regarding the subscription process and the licence agreements should be directed at JISC Collections. Questions relating to the Digimap service should be directed at the EDINA Helpdesk.

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