OS MasterMap goes online for universities.....

19 September 2007, 8:22pm

OS MasterMap goes online for universities and colleges across Britain

Tens of thousands of students, staff and researchers at universities and
further education colleges across Britain have online access to the
country's most advanced digital mapping from this month.

Ordnance Survey's seamless representation of the detailed geography of
Britain, OS MasterMap, is available to support learning and teaching at
all institutions subscribing to the Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection
service.

Digimap is an online mapping and data delivery facility funded by JISC,
the Joint Information Systems Committee, and provided by the EDINA
national data centre based at the University of Edinburgh.

Digimap enables users to download Ordnance Survey information - free at
the point of use - into suitable application software on their own
desktops. It has supported a vast range of studies, from archaeology to
zoology ,since its launch seven years ago.

The addition of OS MasterMap will potentially benefit nearly 32,000
registered Digimap users at 143 institutions, including more than 100
universities.

"Direct access to OS MasterMap opens enormous opportunities for learning
and teaching in all disciplines," says Vanessa Lawrence, Ordnance
Survey's Director General and Chief Executive. "OS MasterMap is a
continually updated comprehensive geographic framework relied on for all
kinds of government and business decision making. Now we can extend its
benefits into higher and further education for research, analysis,
reports and presentations."

"The addition of OS MasterMap to our service offers a wonderful
opportunity for our users," says David Medyckyi-Scott, Research &
Geo-data Services Manager at EDINA. "Seamless geographic information
offers an ideal means to integrate different data sources and help
students and researchers open up new areas of study and expand existing
ones. OS MasterMap can now be incorporated in teaching and learning
materials, including course packs, lecture notes, presentations and
virtual learning environments."

"JISC has made significant investments in the Digimap platform, which
has been created specifically for the education community," says
Lorraine Estelle, CEO of JISC Collections. "The continuation of the JISC
subsidy enables colleges and universities to access millions of pounds
worth of high-value and essential map data that would otherwise be
beyond the means of most institutions. All of this, combined with the
flexible licensing terms and conditions, allows the full enrichment of
education and research."

The new information available through Digimap comes from the OS
MasterMap Topography and Integrated Transport Network (ITN) Layers. The
topographic data shows the position and extent of around half a billion
features on the landscape.

Users can visualise the most up-to-date context of buildings, land,
water, roads and even non-physical features such as administrative
boundaries. Each feature has a unique identifier known as a TOID, which
makes it easy to link and associate different kinds of data to a
specific geographic point. This is ideal for managing information in a
database environment.

The ITN Layer is the most detailed geographic reference base for Great
Britain's road infrastructure. It includes more than 1.5 million items
of routing information, such as height, weight and width restrictions;
traffic calming; turn restrictions and one-way streets. Across industry
and government, it offers a flexible, precise foundation for transport
management systems, the coordination of street works and emergency
planning.

In supporting the Digimap service, OS MasterMap will further enhance an
online education resource that already supports studies in a diverse
range of subject areas, including epidemiology, ecology, planning,
geography, environmental studies, biology, sociology and civil
engineering.

Digimap is governed under rigorous data security for registered users.
More information is available at

www.edina.ac.uk/

GeoConnexion UK