Book a slot for the OS OpenData developer masterclass
Originally posted by Luke on the Ordnance Survey blog.
Earlier in the year, we shared news with you about the latest suite of OS OpenData products that are available through our download portal. The four new products in the portfolio are OS Open Map – Local, OS Open Names, OS Open Rivers and OS Open Roads. On Thursday 2 July, we’re running a free bite-sized masterclass where we’ll be taking a closer look at these products. We’ll be taking classmates on a journey, teaching them how to access, load, style and use the data in open source software – it’s sure to be a great session!
Positive feedback from our sixth series of OpenData Masterclasses
Throughout October, we ran our sixth series of OpenData Masterclasses, in collaboration with Land Registry. The events provided a free opportunity for anyone interested in learning more about OS OpenData to find out more; as well as acting as a warm-up for the current GeoVation Challenge – “How can we enable people in Britain to live in better places”.
With five dates throughout England and Wales, the classes aimed to teach people more about the types of datasets that are to be used in any winning GeoVation Housing Challenge venture.
From attending OS OpenData Masterclass, to winning GeoVation
Today’s blog was written by Land Registry and is reproduced here with their kind permission.
When Jason Davies registered for a GeoVation opendata Masterclass in 2012, he had no idea that it would become the springboard for winning GeoVation Challenge funding.
Jason who worked for Staffordshire and West Midlands Probation Trust registered for the class because he wanted to learn more about Ordnance Survey (OS) mapping data. His organisation who work with offenders serving community sentences, were already considering how they could get members of the public to nominate suitable Community Payback projects.
OS OpenData Masterclasses Begin in Collaboration with Land Registry
Our Guest blog today is from the Land Registry team who are working with us on our current GeoVation Challenge “How can we enable people in Britain to live in better places?”. Land Registry were extremely excited to be working along side us on this years masterclasses giving them a hands on opportunity to show case their data sets in action.
This year’s first GeoVation open data masterclass took place on Thursday 16 October in Tech Hub Swansea. We partnered with Ordnance Survey to host the event, with support from IT specialists Software Alliance Wales. (more…)
Sign up for our Free OS OpenData Masterclasses
We launched the latest GeoVation Challenge in partnership with Land Registry, asking for solutions on ‘How can we enable people in Britain to live in better places?’ We are looking for great ideas which use geography, technology and good design, with entrants having the opportunity to win a share of £101,000 in funding to bring their ideas to reality. All entrants to the GeoVation Housing Challenge must use Ordnance Survey open or paid for data and Land Registry licensable data in their business ventures.
To support the latest GeoVation Challenge and to help people gain a greater understanding of open data and the tools and techniques to use open datasets, we’re hosting a further series of our free opendata masterclasses, at five locations across England and Wales.
Cartography and the value of styling geodata
Today’s guest blog is from Ordnance Survey’s Cartographic Design team, highlighting the value of good cartographic design.
Applying cartographic styling to geodata makes that data immediately more valuable. It makes the data more efficient to interpret and easier to communicate to others. Good cartographic design may even allow developers to understand their data better and so be able to make better use of it and in turn create better applications.
It is said that design adds an extra dimension to a product (in this case geodata) by making it more aesthetic, usable and human.
Over the last couple of years we have been developing and applying our new corporate map styles which provide visual consistency to our portfolio of vector-based maps. These new styles have been applied to our OS VectorMap products as well as our other digital map products, Meridian 2 and Strategi.
We have developed a full colour style and a backdrop style, with the latter being designed for contextual basemaps that facilitate data overlays. We have applied an element of colour science to ensure that all map features take their place within a clear visual hierarchy whereby the features deemed most important will be perceived first.
Good cartography often takes many years of experience and yet national mapping agencies and cartographic publishing houses are now far from the sole users of geospatial data, so we have decided to share our know-how in the form of ready-made stylesheets. Even simply viewing data in a GIS can be improved by good cartographic styling. (more…)
Merry Christmas and Happy Innovating New Year from the GeoVation Team
Dear GeoVators,
We thought it would be a fitting end to the year to give you a quick lowdown on what we have all been doing since our last team blog but firstly, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from GeoVation and Ordnance Survey. Thank you for all your support in 2013. We look forward to running some new challenges and events in the New Year, as well as supporting our existing challenge winners.
Jonathan
Well this has been an eventful few months for the GeoVation team. October saw the arrival of a new member joining on secondment, me ‘Jonathan Field’ you may have seen a few of my blogs and the many tweets being sent out. I joined the GeoVation team from our Design team where I worked as a Graphic Designer and my work included producing literature and stands for the GeoVation team.
In the last year I developed a keen interest in Geospatial Information (GI), having spent 6 months in our Pre and Post Sales Support (PPSS) team learning about a variety of GI software and how our products can and are used by our customers.
Since joining the team I have hit the ground running, researching the problem Pow Wow outputs, not only for the current challenge but for the BITC Southampton hub; attending the Malvern Festival of Innovation where we launched our new challenge; helping at several of the OS OpenData masterclasses, travelling from Southampton to as far afield as Edinburgh; managing our social media streams such as Facebook, Twitter and the Blog; and baking the odd cake or two for the team. In my spare time I have for the last three years been renovating my house from top to bottom and have an end in sight finally…I won’t know what to do with myself once I have finished. (more…)
OS OpenData masterclass materials available to download
We ran a series of free masterclasses this autumn to help new and exisitng opendata users to gain a greater understanding of open data and the tools and techniques to use open datasets, Following the success of the masterclasses across Great Britain, many of you asked to have access to the training materials.
We’ve now made these available on our website for you to download datasets, open source GIS and workbooks to take you through the exercises.
Open data masterclasses kick off in style in Southampton
The first of our latest series of OS OpenData masterclasses was held last week. Dee Davis, product manager for OS OpenData, explains what happened:
On Thursday 7 November, we hosted the first in our 2013 series of OS OpenData masterclasses in Southampton. The event was fully booked and hosted participants from the public sector, commercial businesses and academia.
Ian Holt, our Developer Programme Manager kicked-off the day with an introduction to the benefits of open data and pointed to the different sources of data, such as data.gov.uk and is it open data? and Viv Alexander, Community Manager followed with an overview of our GeoVation process and announced the latest GeoVation Challenge around active lifestyles .
After the introduction it was straight down to business and working through a series of exercises showing how to use a geographic information system (GIS) to work with our OS OpenData products, alongside other open data such as demographics.
Ordnance Survey Free OS OpenData masterclasses
Our OS OpenData masterclasses are filling up quickly, but we still have some spaces left. So, make sure you book your space at an event near you today.
Our masterclasses will follow the format of previous workshops; combining theory and practical sessions.
The updated workshop material will follow the journey of downloading the data, importing it into open source software and mashing with other open datasets to provide analysis. The session is ideal for those new to working with location data or anyone wishing to brush-up on their skills.
We shall also be working with OS OpenSpace, Ordnance Survey’s free web‑mapping service that allows users to display up-to-date Ordnance Survey mapping in a web page or an online environment. Our workshop for this session will show how to create file formats that can be easily imported into web mapping to pinpoint a list of locations – allowing you to create interactive maps similar to our special Halloween Masterclass/Ghost walk location finder.
Return of Ordnance Survey’s free OS OpenData Masterclasses
People across Great Britain are being given the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of open data and the tools and techniques to use open datasets, through a series of free masterclasses, hosted by Ordnance Survey and supported by Horizon Digital Economy Research.
This series of masterclasses will follow the format of previous workshops in combining theory and practical sessions.
Ordnance Survey at the Festival of Code 2013
On the 5th and 6th of August, we’re supporting the Young Rewired State’s Festival of Code 2013. This will be the fifth such exciting gathering of talented young coders, designers and developers – all of whom are under the age of 18. Our developer outreach team will be supporting the event by offering mentorship to some of the teams that have entered the competition.
So, what is the The Festival of Code? Essentially, it’s a week-long hackathon for young people, taking place in various centres throughout the UK. From Monday through to Thursday, young people will gather to learn how to code and how to program the world around them.