Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

So 10 days ago now, the UK Government announced that they would be freeing up some Ordnance Survey data as part of a “drive to improve transparency”. You can read reactions to this all over the geospatial blogs (see Mapperz excellent round-up), some ambivalent, others mostly positive.

Me, I’m with the ambivalent crowd. On one level, assuming it’s actually useful datasets made available, and assuming we get to use them how we’d like to (using it in our internal GIS, for example), it will be great, and my colleagues will find their jobs considerably easier. However, like a lot of things the UK Government has done recently, this was handled badly (the lack of Ordnance Survey input into the original announcement,  speaks volumes). If it’s not going to be done willingly, will we see the same quality? The same commitment to survey the rural areas? Presumably, the cost of the remaining datasets will go up to cover the projected loss of revenue (whatever that is), so a lot of small businesses could end up in a worse situation than they are now- with expensive data that they can’t afford, or free data that’s not fit for purpose because it’s not complete or recently updated. Like Peter Batty, I don’t want our data brought in line with that of the US, as it’s currently much better!

I’m glad there has been a change, as I broadly support the Free Our Data campaign, and have done since it started, but I wanted it to be well thought through and planned for, and not a snap decision to try and win some votes. How naive of me…

I’m also concerned, like Peter Batty, about the affect on OpenStreetMap. I’ve been an enthusiastic convert to the benefits of OSM, since hearing of Muki Haklay’s completeness studies, and with seeing some of the beautiful maps and really cool innovations that it has spawned recently. At conferences in the UK this year OSM felt like the juggernaut it was impossible to ignore, and why would you want to?  OSM is now a valuable part of the UK geospatial ecosystem and I would hate to see that change.

I’ve been out at a couple of Association for Geographic Information (AGI) events over the last couple of weeks- organised by their Northern Group. Their main function is to organised events in the North of England (hence the name), but the outgoing chairman Rollo, has been really pushing for events with a national attendance and relevance. I spoke briefly at both events, and my talks can be found on slideshare and on my talks page here.

The first event, a couple of weeks ago now, was Where2Now- a lively scamper through some leading edge ideas, mainly about geographic location for the masses rather than technical GIS per se (yes, I’m trying to avoid using the word NeoGeography, but that’s what I’m talking about). There were speakers from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, OpenStreetMap, Geovation, Ordnance Survey- in fact if you attended the Geoweb stream at the main AGI conference you’ll have a good idea who spoke! I did a short talk on the impact of “open” (access/source/data) as a disruptive technology (as far as I’m concerned this neo/mashup/open era wouldn’t be here without it), and attempted to demo a couple of deeply cool new toys that we’re working with at the moment- mapchat and gvsigmobile, both of which I think have the potential to be incredibly useful and really big. Unfortunately my laptop had stage fright and refused to speak to the monitor, so I couldn’t do a live demo of gvsigmobile as I wanted to.

Perhaps my favourite talk of the day was John McKerrell, talking about mapme.at, with his geo-clock (if you’ve read Harry Potter, remember the Weasley’s clock, with hands for each member of the family pointing to where they are at any given moment). Luckily John hasn’t found a need for a “mortal peril” setting yet! Mapme.at is great- it’s one of those ideas which can only work with the ubiquitous nature of geolocation these days, in phones, and with all the geo-location apis that you can use. Basically it’s a way of mapping where you are, and of plotting your location history, using feeds from twitter, email, google latitude, fire eagle etc.  Someone asked what it could be used for, but I think that’s missing the point somewhat- John has provided the basic idea,  and it’s up to the user to figure out what to do with it!

Again, the #geocom twitter stream going on in the background provided an interesting counter-point to the talks, although it’s increasingly worrying as a speaker not knowing if there’s a discussion about how rubbish you are going on while you’re giving the talk!

The second event I attended last week was a World GIS Day event at the Grammar School in Leeds. This followed on from the incredibly successful closing presentation at the main AGI conference, in which kids from the school, and a couple of their teachers discussed the way in which GIS is used throughout the whole school. The event last week was a chance for professional GIS users to talk a little about the way in which they use GIS, and also to see in more detail how GIS is used in the school. We also attended part of a sixth-form geography lesson, which was really interesting (not the least for the looks of abject trauma on all the attendee’s faces at sitting in a class room again after many years).

With my “open” hat on, I was quite uneasy about the way in which ESRI is synonymous with GIS in that environment, but to be fair it’s because they have worked extremely hard to provide the material for the teachers, which isn’t yet available anywhere else. My other concern was that teaching GIS seemed to be more about teaching which buttons to press to get a particular result, rather than teaching the theory and asking the kids how to figure it out *in that particular software package*. My “open source” side is frustrated that they are producing a generation of kids who will think ESRI is the only GIS to use, and when they are in  a position to influence the use of GIS themselves, within organisations,  or other schools, that’s the route they will choose. However, where in a school curriculum is the chance to give kids a choice, and how can open source provide them with that? Things to think about…

… or there again, there might not!

This is just a heads up for a couple of events/workshops that I’m involved in over the next couple of weeks and months.

Firstly, next Tuesday is the AGI Northern Group Where2.0Now one-day conference, at GeoPlan in Harrogate. If you want to know what this whole “neogeography” thing is, and what it means to you, then be there or be terribly antiquated. There are some great speakers lined up (and me, but beggars can’t be choosers), and it’s looking like a good day. With luck and a fair wind I will have “cool things” to show too…

Secondly, in January 2010 I’m helping on a 2-day workshop at Lancaster University on open source GIS. We did this last year, and it was well received, so it’s getting a reprisal. There’s a flyer here, and you can book here. For UK higher ed or other educational types, it’s pretty cheap if you ask me, and the food’s good too.

Hope you can make it to one or both of these.

I also did a talk last week to local government types, on how open source GIS could be viable within their organisation. The slides are up on slideshare if you’re interested!