Event "Share to Save" finalised - get it in your diary fast

Our first Local Public Services Event - Share to Save is getting to that very exciting stage. 

On the 29th of June we have a wonderful range of speakers to help us see how we will survive following all the recent doom and gloom about public spending cuts. This event is a must for all Local Government and Health officers to see how much joining up is possible, and suppliers of data and software will gain a better understanding of what we in LPS need to do fast. Its going to be a tough few years, and only the smart will survive.

Click the highlighted text for details, or check out the AGI events calendar - and hope we see you there.

Thoughts on GI and the Digital Economy Act 2010

As is my wont, I think it's time to ask some questions on this new act and what it might mean for us in our day to day working. I see two main areas of influence for us to consider; public wi-fi and proof of creation.

The first may not be your concern if you are not in the ICT section of your Organisation, however you may be using a wifi connection at a partner site yourself. In this case, you have to think about not just what you are doing for work, but also what you are also doing for your home life.  Suppose you open an email forwarded from a friend which, unbeknownst to either of you contains a video that has been withdrawn. Sometimes the withdrawal is by the same company who uploaded it, so you have no way of knowing if this may happen. The wifi you are using, may then be turned off at the request of that same company. Won't that be rather embarrassing?

Secondly, and I feel more relevantly, we all use the same software, which has standard thematic maps to go with our shared public raw data. If one of these maps goes into a book, how can you then prove you didn't copy it if challenged without going through a very arduous and costly process? We have all been talking about what happened when our freely given address information got copyrighted by the Royal Mail for their aggregation effort, and then again by the OS for the initial georeferencing of the file. Let's not walk blindly into a duplicate situation. Asserting your Intellectual Property Rights doesn't mean charging necessarily, it just means your effort must be recognised when the data is reused, and this must be with your consent once fair use clauses have been exceeded.

We in GI must sadly start to think now about where the free data is going, and what is being done with it. Can we talk to the raw data providers about copyright clauses that stipulate copyright can only be enforced on their raw data if significant work has been done to it? And if so, what's significant?

Welcome to the Local Public Services SIG - Hendrik Grothuis of Cambridgeshire County Council (SIG Chair)

And a hello from me. My name is Hendrik Grothuis and I am the chair of the newly formed Local Public Services Special Interest Group (LPS SIG). This SIG was set up in early 2010 to bring all local public service GI under one umbrella group and it is here to represent the interests of GI professionals working in local government, Health and Emergency Planning. In fact, it represents everyone working with geospatial information in public services of all shapes and sizes. There is no ‘one fit’ anymore and as government restructures and rebrands, we must evolve with the needs and demands that this puts upon us. This is where this group can assist: in helping each other share knowledge and develop solutions for best practice in the utilisation of GI and raising awareness of the potential of GI in tackling so many of the issues that the public services encounter.

Click to read more ...

LPS talks from AGI NI group presentations linked

I am pleased to say that AGI NI had an event despite speakers being rather a long way from NI on the day! - I presented from Wiltshire using the free theater tools on apple iChat, and the keynotes from America used a video link. So we nicely proved we can have speakers without having to pay too much in transport if necessary. There were quite a few LPS presenters, so check out the events link under the case studies section if you want to know more about Emergency and Contingency Planning

New FAQ - how to follow us on twitter

Take a look at the FAQ's which will be steadily growing, and you will find the new guide to Twitter, and what it is. Let us know if you have a question that you would like us to add, however please don't ask about acronyms, as we are compiling a guide to those already.