Top 5 moments of 2010 – a big year for geography
Well the turkey has been eaten, the crackers pulled and a small mountain of wrapping paper is now sitting on the driveway waiting to be taken away…
But wait, the party season of excess isn’t quite over yet as New Year’s Eve now looms large – and with it come the obligatory reviews of the year.
The last 12 months have been a watershed year for Ordnance Survey. So much has changed in a relatively small space of time it’s quite incredible to think back to how things were beforehand. So without further ado, we’ve made a list of what we think are the top 5 stories of 2010.
If you think we’ve missed something, or have got it completely wrong, feel free to suggest a list of your own highlights, and have a great New Year’s Eve, whatever your plans are.5. £150,000 awards fund announced for GeoVation
There were plenty of people who were very sceptical about GeoVation when we first launched it back in 2009. But with the initiative now in its second year I think we’ve proved our critics wrong. Not only has GeoVation helped fund open data master classes across the country, we’ve also helped support the development of three geography based ventures.
This year’s GeoVation Challenges are specifically themed around key areas where geography can help make a difference – one of which is improving transport in Britain. And back in October, we were delighted to announce the support of the Technology Strategy Board’s Ideas in Transit Project.
Their backing means an awards fund of £150,000 is now available to help develop winning entries. That’s real money to be invested in sustainable business ideas in a very difficult economic environment. To get that kind of vote of confidence was a great boost to the project and testament to the incredible hard work of the small but dedicated GeoVation team.
And there is still chance you for to enter your idea!
4. DigiMap for Schools
In 2002 Ordnance Survey started giving free OS Explorer Maps to every 11-year-old in England, Scotland and Wales.
Nine years later and more than 6 million maps now belong to children that might otherwise have never seen one, let alone owned one for themselves.
The scheme helped reconnect a generation of children to a sense of place and where their community belonged in the world.
But the world today is very different to that of 2002, so in November, together with JISC and EDINA, we launched DigiMap for Schools, bringing high quality geographic data into every class room in the country.
3. A new Pricing and Licensing model
It was a long time in the making, but in October we announced a huge raft of changes to our pricing and licensing model. Long and difficult contracts were made much simpler – with one falling from 37 to 16 pages – whilst the total number was also slashed. Partners that now want to use our data need only choose from three contracts, instead of a possible 12.
But perhaps more important were the changes to the content. The new model brought in terms to allow partners to licence and resell almost all of our products, including our flagship dataset, OS MasterMap Topography Layer.
There was also guidance on the use of Derived Data, and the term ‘Free to Use Data’ entered the GI vernacular, with the aim of allowing greater sharing of information that has been inferred from existing features.
And in terms of feedback, so far so good!
2. Public Sector Mapping Agreement
When the PSMA was announced in August it heralded a complete change to how the public sector in England and Wales will access geographic information. When the agreement comes into effect on 1 April, the days of separate deals for central government, local authorities and the health service will be swept away, and in their place will stand a single, centrally funded agreement, making the data free at the point of use. This will put geographic information in the hands of everyone from Whitehall departments and Local Authorities to Parish Councils and hundreds of other organisations.
The PSMA includes a broad range of Ordnance Survey data, including OS MasterMap Topography and Integrated Transport Network Layers as well as almost all the supporting scales of mapping. It will be exciting to see the best examples of that data in action over the coming months and years.
1. OS OpenData
Of course there really want only ever one real contender to the top spot. On 1 April the landscape of the GI industry in Britain changed forever with the launch of OS OpenData, providing free and totally unrestricted access to key geographic data for the first time.
How it all came about is now well documented, and since April an enormous amount of data has been downloaded. At the time Sir Tim Berners-Lee said: “I’m delighted that the Ordnance Survey is releasing this data for free re-use. It will help people make fuller use of other government data on data.gov.uk, as well as stimulating innovation in mapping itself.”
And we immediately started to see people making use of the data. Since then we’ve run a series of OS OpenData workshops whilst encouraging its use is also central to the current GeoVation Challenge, with additional funds available to support entrants that want to develop applications using it.
As ever, if you’re building something exciting using OS OpenData, we’d love to hear about it, so let us know.
So that’s it. It’s been a massive year – full of challenges and changes.
Here’s to a great 2011.
Behind the scenes, OS OpenData, Using GI and maps
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2010, data, geography, Geovation, Open, Ordnance Survey, PSMA, review, top 5
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