OS MasterMap: Change-only Update release on 24 March

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions

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

ecls/ / Consultations, Digimap News, Of Interest

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

ecls/ / Training & Events

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

ecls/ / Digimap News, New Features

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

ecls/ / Of Interest

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

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.