Author: ecls

NEW! Geospatial data sharing service

ecls/ / Digimap News, New Features

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.

10 January – Digimap Now Available

ecls/ / Service Availability

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

ecls/ / Service Availability

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

ecls/ / Service Availability

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

ecls/ / Of Interest

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

Essential Maintenance: 8 January

ecls/ / Service Availability

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

ecls/ / Service Availability

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

ecls/ / Access

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.