AGILE Initiative - Spatial Data Access Survey

Higher and Further Education in the UK already has access to a significant quantity of mapping and spatial data from Ordnance Survey via the Digimap agreement. EDINA is conducting a survey in order to understand more about current academic access to maps and data from other national mapping agencies (i.e. the European equivalents of Ordnance Survey) in other European countries. While we are happy for Digimap users to complete the survey, you can help us further by passing this link on to friends and colleagues within Higher or Further Education elsewhere in Europe: http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey Please read on for more details.

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Are you are a teacher, lecturer or researcher at a Higher Education Institution in Europe?

Do you use geospatial data (maps, aerial photography, satellite imagery etc.)?

http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey

What is the purpose of this survey?
The purpose of this survey is to find out how easy it is for you, as a teacher or researcher, to gain access to the geospatial data sets held by the National Mapping and Cadastral Agency or Agencies in your country. Europe’s Network of National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs) hold and maintain the majority of Europe’s ‘core’ geospatial information including:

• topographic data;


• cadastral information;


• aerial photography; and


• land use information and historical map data.

We believe that Higher Education in Europe should be an important market for the NMCAs, as there are around 4,000 Higher Education institutions, with over 17 million students and 1.5 million staff.

With your help, we hope to find out how easy it is to access these data. We will use this information to encourage more NMCAs to make their data available to teachers and researchers in Higher Education across Europe. Our goal is to help you gain access to the quality geospatial data that you need.

Who is carrying out the survey?
Our research team is part of the EDINA National Data Centre, based in the University of Edinburgh, UK. The survey has been endorsed by the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe (AGILE) and EuroGeographics, which represents 52 National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies from 43 countries across Europe.

When will the survey finish?
The survey will be open for you to complete until Tuesday 21st April 2009.

During this time we would like your help to get as many teachers and researchers as possible to complete the survey. So, once you have completed the survey, please pass on the email and web link to this survey.

How do I complete the survey?
The survey can be found at http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey

Who should I contact for more information?
If you have any questions please contact: Dr David Medyckyj-Scott, by email at edina.surveys@ed.ac.uk

Reminder: April Digimap Training

This is a reminder that there are still spaces available on the following Digimap training courses, open to staff members (and postgraduates for the OS MasterMap courses) in UK higher and further education institutions:

• Digimap Collections: 31 March-2 April 2009 - Leeds University
• OS MasterMap for Users: 22 April 2009 - York University

The following courses will be offered but booking is not yet open:

• Digimap Essentials: 4 June 2009 - Bilborough College, Nottingham
• Digimap Collections: 9-11 June 2009 - Exeter University

You will find listings and booking forms (where open) for these and all other EDINA training events here: http://edina.ac.uk/events/ These courses are free of charge. Regretfully, however, we will charge £25.00 per person for each day of absence of which EDINA is not given prior notice. This is due to the increasing number of no-shows at courses.

Note that all attendees MUST be registered users of Digimap's Ordnance Survey Collection in order to participate in the OS MasterMap training.

OS MasterMap: CoU release on 24 March

The next release of Change-only Update data for OS MasterMap will be put into service on Tuesday 24 March 2009. The currency date of the new data will be 20 January 2009.*

Change-only Update (CoU) applies only to the OS MasterMap data. It does not apply to any other data product.

EDINA collates all the data changes released by Ordnance Survey over a 6-month period, and makes these available through Digimap approximately every 6 months. The previous update was released in September 2008.

What is the point of Change-only Update?
Change-only Updates enable you to update your data holding without needing to store multiple copies or versions of the same data. By taking only the changes to the data you hold you can minimise the storage requirements for your data, while still maintaining an up-to-date dataset. This is particularly useful if you are studying changes to an area over time.

Most users will not need Change-only Update. CoU is only useful to you if you already have a full copy of the original data to which you can apply the changes.


How do I download CoU?
You can download Change-only Updates only for data orders you have already submitted within Digimap's Mastermap Download facility. Go to the Your Account page within Mastermap Download and scroll down to the table of Orders.

You will see a list of all your previous Orders, and in the final column you will see whether or not CoU is available for that Order.

If CoU is available, click the radio button in the far left column for the Order you require. Below this table, you will see two buttons in a blue box:

Click the first button to Order Change-only Update. The data file will be delivered in the usual way: you will receive one email to say your Order has been received and is being processed, and a second email to say your data is ready for collection.

If you submit a new order for OS MasterMap data, by defining the Layer, Themes and your chosen area, you will automatically receive the latest version of the data; this will include all the latest changes. Change-only Update will therefore not be available for such an Order until the next batch of CoU is released.

Example
You submit an Order for data on 20 March 2009. In the Orders table under Your Account, the Order details say that CoU is not available. This is because you already have the latest version of the data.

If you submit a second Order for data on 27 March 2009, you will also see that the order details say that CoU is not available. Again, you have the latest version of the data; it includes the changes which were released on 24 March.

If you go back to look at your first Order (submitted on 20 March) on 2 April 2009, you will see that COU is now vailable for this Order. This is because the changes released on 24 March are now available; they were not available when you submitted the original order.

* Although the latest update is dated 20 January 2009, it takes time for Ordnance Survey to process and release these data, to send them out to EDINA and for EDINA to process and load the data into the database. This accounts for the time delay between the "freeze date" of the database (20 January 2009) and the release date (24 March 2009).

Northern Ireland map data: JISC Consultation

JISC Collections has an opportunity to add Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) data to the Digimap Collections. Before a final decision is made to pursue this agreement JISC Collections would like to guage interest in these mapping data from existing subscribers. JISC Collections would welcome feedback on whether or not your institution would participate in an agreement to supply OSNI data through Digimap Collections.

It has been proposed that the following data be included in the licensing arrangement. The suggested formats are also given for each dataset:

• OSNI Largescale Vector (ntf, dxf, dwg)
• OSNI 1:50,000 Vector (shapefile, mapinfo tab)
• OSNI RegionalMap (pgdb, shapefile)
• OSNI GlobalMap (pgdb, shapefile)
• OSNI Road Network (shapefile, mapinfo tab)
• OSNI Boundary Map (pgdb, shapefile)
• OSNI Pointer Product (format: csv) (Pointer includes Royal Mail Group PAF postcodes)
• OSNI Place Name Gazetteer Product- OSNI 1:10,000 Raster Product (format: tiff, ecw)
• OSNI Raster Activity Map Products (format: tiff, ecw)
• OSNI 1:50,000 Raster Product (format: tiff, ecw)
• OSNI 1:250,000 Raster Product (format: tiff)
• OSNI Parliamentary Constituency Raster Map Products (format: jpeg)
• OSNI Raster Street Map Products (format: tiff, ecw)
• OSNI Historical Archive Product (format: ecw)
• OSNI DTM 50m, standard, enhanced Products (format: txt, dbf, dgn)
• OSNI Orthophotography Product (format: ecw)

More information about the data can be found on the OSNI website: http://www.osni.gov.uk/

The suggested prices for an institutional subscription to this agreement vary according to JISC's institutional banding, and are as follows:

Higher Education

• Bands A-B - £750 per annum
• Bands C-D - £600 per annum
• Bands E-F - £400 per annum
• Bands G-J - £100 per annum

Further Education

• All bands - £75 per institution

If you would find it useful to have access to Northern Ireland data, please contact your Digimap site representative to express an interest in a subscription. If you don't know who your site representative is, please check the list on our website: http://edina.ac.uk/digimap/list.shtml

If you are a Digimap Site Representative, please gather feedback you receive from Digimap users at your institution and contact Liam Earney (L.Earney@jisc.ac.uk) if you would like to express an interest in a subscription for your institution.

Training: booking now open

EDINA would like to announce that booking is now open and there are spaces available on the following Digimap training courses, open to staff members (and postgraduates for the MasterMap courses) in UK higher and further education institutions:

• Digimap Collections: 31 March-2 April 2009 - Leeds University


• OS MasterMap for Users: 22 April 2009 - York University

The following courses will be offered this year, but booking is not yet open:

• Digimap Essentials: 4 June 2009 - Bilborough College, Nottingham


• Digimap Collections: 9-11 June 2009 - Exeter University

Further details of course content and learning objectives can be found on our website. You will also find listings and booking forms (where open) for these and all other EDINA training events here: http://edina.ac.uk/events/

This page contains details of all forthcoming EDINA courses and workshops which may interest staff within subscribing institutions, including multimedia services courses to be announced soon.
We strongly encourage site representatives to attend an OS MasterMap course if they have not done so already. Other members of staff and postgraduate students from institutions which subscribe to Digimap are also welcome. Note that all attendees MUST be registered users of Digimap's Ordnance Survey Collection in order to participate in the OS MasterMap training.

Running the courses is subject to a sufficient level of interest. If you are uncertain about the relevance of a course for your needs, please get in touch with EDINA for advice at edina-training@ed.ac.uk

All EDINA training courses are free of charge. Regretfully, however, we will charge £25.00 per person for each day of absence of which EDINA is not given prior notice. This is due to the increasing number of no-shows at courses.

Lunch will be provided for all full-day attendees and refreshments will be available throughout the day. If you have any questions about Digimap or these courses, please do not hesitate to contact us.

ShareGeo Launched

A new geospatial data sharing facility has been released today which enables Digmap users to find and share geospatial datasets.

ShareGeo forms part of the EDINA Digimap suite of services and is accessible from the Digimap Collections main page in the 'Find and Share' section. It is free for all Digimap users to use.

Use ShareGeo to contribute your own (derived or user-generated) geospatial datasets, or to download datasets which are already there for your research, teaching or personal use.

Have you created a geospatial dataset for your dissertation? Do you use them in your teaching? Do you think they would be interesting/useful to others? If so, contribute them to ShareGeo and they will be accessible for download by other Digimap users*.

Geospatial datasets in a number of formats (raster, vector and tabular) can be contributed for anywhere in the world. A minimal amount of metadata is required for each dataset. Access ShareGeo by logging in to Digimap (http://edina.ac.uk/digimap) and then either follow the link on the Collections page to ShareGeo or click on the following link: http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/sharegeo/

Help and further information is available at: http://edina.ac.uk/projects/sharegeo/Help/help.shtml We would welcome comments and feedback sent to us at edina@ed.ac.uk Alternatively you can use the form within ShareGeo at: http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/sharegeo/feedback

*Licensing restrictions may apply to some datasets. If, for example, a dataset is derived from Ordnance Survey data, only Digimap users registered for Digimap's Ordnance Survey Collection will be able to access it. Specific licence restrictions may apply to individual datasets and these must be adhered to.

Obituary: Peter Burrough

Peter Burrough, one of the founding fathers of GIS research, died in Leiden on 9th January 2009.

Peter Burrough is recognised for his for seminal work, Principles of GIS for land resources management. Published in 1986, the book introduced the essential technical tasks of GIS applications such as spatial data capture, storage, and output, and the development of the analytical models that were needed to exploit the full potential of this new technology. The book became an instrumental resource for soil scientists as well as geographers, surveyors, social scientists, urban planners and students in these fields. As a result many became interested in the newly developing GIS field.

Peter Burrough is also recognised for his important contributions to the creation of both AGILE (the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe) and to EUROGI (EURopean Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information) at a critical point in its development.

In January 2007, his role as a founding father of GIS research was internationally recognised in a special issue of the International Journal of Geographic Information Science on Advances in the spatio-temporal modelling of environment and landscapes. This was edited by two of his former colleagues at Utrecht University and the co-author of the second edition of his classic work, Rachael McDonnell.

NEW! Geospatial data sharing service

EDINA have implemented a new geospatial data sharing facility called ShareGeo. It forms part of the Digimap Collections suite of services.


It is intended that ShareGeo will be accessible to all Digimap users at the beginning of February, however we are providing early access to it for readers of the Digimap blog (details of how to access it are below).

Please feel free to browse and download any datasets that are already there. If you have any geospatial datasets, we would ask you to contribute these to ShareGeo. ShareGeo is free to use for all registered Digimap users.

ShareGeo can be accessed after logging in to Digimap, using the following liks.

• First login to Digimap at: http://edina.ac.uk/digimap You will see a greyed out link to ShareGeo.


• The visible link is not active, so you will need to go to ShareGeo by entering the following link in your browser: http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/sharegeo/ (Note: Once the facility is accessible to all, there will be a link on the Digimap Collections page to take you directly to ShareGeo)

Help and further information is available at: http://edina.ac.uk/projects/sharegeo/Help/help.shtml We would welcome comments and feedback sent to us at edina@ed.ac.uk Alternatively you can use the form within ShareGeo at: http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/sharegeo/feedback

If you need help or advice regading ShareGeo please do not hesitate to contact us.

12 January - full access restored

Following a hardware failure during routine maintenance, access to all Digimap Collections and facilities has been restored. Apologies for the inconvenience caused by this incident.

10 January - Digimap Now Available

Access to the Digimap service was restored around 7pm last night (Friday 9 January) following a recent hardware failure. However, the MasterMap Download facility remains unavailable and will do so until Monday 12 January.

The available services have not yet been fully tested, so it is possible that you may find some elements not fully functional. If you encounter any failures, please report these to the EDINA Helpdesk on edina@ed.ac.uk; they will be dealt with on Monday 12 January.

9 January - update

Following yesterday's scheduled maintenance, Digimap remains unavailable today owing to an unexpected hardware problem which could not have been predicted. Engineers are currently working on some diagnostic tests to establish the extent of the problem.

In diagnosing the problem there are a number of tasks to be performed, each one of which may or may not offer a solution. It is therefore not possible to predict how long it will take to reach a solution.

The full Digimap service will not be available today, Friday 9 January or on the morning of Saturday 10 January. Our next opportunity to provide an update on progress will be around 2pm on Saturday 10 January. Further to that, updates will not be available until Monday 12 January.

Again, EDINA apologises for the inconvenience this causes.

9 January: Digimap unavailable

Yesterday, a significant upgrade was scheduled for the service machines which host Digimap. The upgrade should have been completed by around 5.30 pm. However, unforseen problems with the upgrade have meant that Digimap remains unavailable today, Friday 9 January. Our last update yesterday was at 6.45pm.

Engineers are currently having to acquire and install a new piece of hardware in order to fix the problems which arose yesterday. As yet we do not know how long this will take, nor do we know when the next progress update will be delivered. When we have further information on an estimated time for restoring access to Digimap, this information will be posted here and on the Digimap login page.

EDINA apologises for the inconvenience the service unavailability causes.

Review of geo-spatial services for the ESRC

EDINA has received the following message regarding a survey being conducted by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which we believe will be of great interest to you.

EDINA believes that this survey will influence the development and availability of services offering geospatial resources to the academic community. If you or your colleagues make use of, or have in the past made use of, geospatial data or resources (maps, satellite data, statistical data, census information etc), we would strongly urge you to complete the survey.

We would also be grateful if you would pass on a link to this page to colleagues who may not see it. Note the closing date of the survey is 31 January 2009.

The following text is from the researchers conducting the survey, and gives some useful background:

In support of the National Strategy for Data Resources for Research in the Social Sciences, the Economic and Social Research Council has commissioned a review of the current availability of, access to, and future needs for geo-spatial data services by the research community. These are broadly defined and include not only the data necessary to map and analyse data with a spatial dimension, but also resources which broaden the range of spatial research undertaken and enhance the ability of researchers to undertake spatial analysis.

To assist us with this review, would you please spare a few minutes to complete a short web-based survey concerned with the awareness and use of geo-spatial resources by researchers and their opinions about new areas for development via ESRC investment. Please note that we are interested in your opinions even if you are not currently undertaking research with a spatial or geographical dimension.

Any information you provide will be used purely for statistical purposes in order to plan future services. This survey will remain confidential and any published results will not identify individuals.

The survey should take 5 to 10 minutes to complete and will remain openuntil 31 January 2009.

Link to: Geo-Spatial Resources and Services Survey


Many thanks for taking the time to complete this survey.

Peter Elias, Anne Green and David Owen,
Institute for Employment Research,
University of Warwick,
Coventry CV4 7AL.

NB: If you want further information about this review or wish tocontribute your views/opinions in a more detailed fashion, please emailthe researchers directly:
Peter.Elias@warwick.ac.uk
Anne.Green@warwick.ac.uk
D.W.Owen@warwick.ac.uk

Reminder: Digimap Training in January

Places are still available for Digimap training in Newcastle on 20 - 22 January 2009. Further details can be found on the EDINA website.

You can register online for this event here.

EDINA would also like to wish you a happy new year.

Essential Maintenance: 8 January

On Thursday 8 January 2009, EDINA will be undertaking some essential maintenance on the servers which run Digimap.

This means that all Digimap Collections should be regarded as unavailable between 08.00 hours and 17.30 hours on this day. We will endeavour to restore full access to all services as soon as possible, but given that it is not possible to predict exactly how long the task in hand will take, you should anticipate that the service will be unavailable for the full period.

Notices to this effect will be posted on the Digimap login page and a reminder will be sent to site representatives nearer the time.

Carto Bookmarks

On Wednesday 17 December, EDINA will be removing all bookmarks from Carto which contain references to Land-Line maps.

The data which underpins these bookmarks has been withdrawn and consequently, any bookmarks which reference Land-Line data will not draw maps. Therefore, to avoid any confusion created by maps which do not draw as expected, EDINA is removing the appropriate bookmarks from all users accounts.

As a result, you may notice that some of the bookmarks in Carto no longer appear in the Bookmarks tab.

Changes to Digimap Registration

On Friday 12 December, EDINA will make a small change to the Digimap registration pages. Currently, users logging in to Digimap with new (un-registered) login credentials are given the option to link their new details with an existing registration that they may have with Digimap. This option was implemented to aid the transition between Athens and the UK Federation in August 2008.

EDINA has discovered that many users are not logging out of the UK Federation properly, and are inadvertently allowing other individuals to access services using their login details. This is because the only way to log out of the UK Federation is to close *all* browser windows.

As a result of this, some Digimap users are linking their Digimap registration with the UK Federation login details of other users who are not registered with Digimap. This allows both users access to the service, when only one individual has agreed to the terms of the licence.

In order to avoid this problem, EDINA is removing the option to link a new registration with an existing registration. This change will take effect from the evening of Friday 12 December 2008. Users registering for Digimap with a new set of login details will be automatically requested to submit these details as a new registration. This simplifies the registration process and ensures that users cannot link accounts inappropriately.

If you have questions about this change, or would like to discuss it further, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Hardware failure update

The hardware which failed has now been replaced and normal service resumed. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

9 December: Hardware failure

Users are currently unable to access any Digimap Collection. At 17.40 on Monday 8 December, one of Digimap's service machines suffered a disk failure. In order to fix the problem it has been necessary to order replacement parts for the machine. Our current estimate for restoring full access to Digimap is late this afternoon at the earliest.

When we have a more definite timescale for resolving the problem, we will post the information here, and on the Digimap login page.

Win a prize worth £1750!!

Are you using Ordnance Survey data in an innovative way? If so, enter the competition and you could win a prize!

EDINA and Ordnance Survey are pleased to announce a competition to find the most innovative use of Ordnance Survey data. To enter the competition you need to submit a summary of your work which describes what you were trying to achieve, what Ordnance Survey data you used (and how), what makes the work and the use of the data innovative, and how the data could be improved to make the work easier, or to have made more possible.

Full competition details
Full details of the competition can be found here. Please ensure you read this document carefully before submitting your application.

Grand Prize
The winner will receive £250 of Amazon vouchers to distribute amongst project colleagues plus travel, accommodation and conference fees for one or more researchers, up to a total value of £1,500, to a conference of your choice. There are second and third prizes of £250 and £100 in Amazon vouchers.

Closing date
The closing date for entries is midnight on Saturday 31st January 2009. Entries may be submitted by email or on paper.

Questions
All questions regarding the competition should be addressed to Ordnance Survey directly, on universityenquiries@ordnancesurvey.co.uk


Good luck!