Roscommon County Council utilise Socium’s new Online Validation and Automatic Correction Service

Cambridge, UK, 27th March 2012 -  Roscommon County Council has chosen Socium’s Online Validation and Automatic Correction Service to complete the quality assurance and fix up of their Irish MapRoads data.

Since its launch in November last year, a number of local authorities in Ireland have been utilising Socium’s Online Validation Service to identify and locate errors within their MapRoads data, which has proved extremely valuable.  Roscommon County Council however, wanted to not only ensure that the data was accurate but also that it was associated with a truly connected road network and aligned correctly with the Ordnance Survey large scale road centreline dataset. To complete this manually would have taken months of work and Socium therefore fast tracked the launch of their new Automatic Correction Service so that they could offer a full end to end service, which not only identified the issues in the data, but also automatically fixed and re-aligned it for the council.

Roscommon found that this independent and automated rule approach was ideal for what they needed to achieve. The fact that the service was also cloud based, meant that the Council did not have to purchase any software, hardware or maintenance and could therefore easily complete the project on time and within budget.

Barry Doyle, GIS Officer, Roscommon County Council commented:

“Socium’s Online Validation and Automatic Correction Service proved a very useful and time saving tool and we believe that the service can save councils like us, many man months of work.

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Andrew Zolnai puts Socium’s Online Validation Service to the test

Cambridge, UK, 7^th March 2012 - Andrew Zolnai, an expert in GIS, has utilised Socium’s Online Validation Service (OVS) to automate the quality assurance process in his Medieval Fenlands wealth analysis project. 

The Medieval Fenlands Data is made up of base Ordnance Survey data and associated attribute information with the latter being populated through a manual process. To ensure the validity of the information being produced and therefore its value, a full data validation and correction process was required.

Andrew’s option for this validation was a manual inspection until learning about Socium’s OVS. By utilising a combination of standard rulesets and working with Socium to build specific validation rules, Andrew was able to automate the entire data validation process. This not only ensured the accuracy of the resulting changing wealth demographics, but as the OVS is cloud based there were no capex or infrastructure costs, a key aspect to Andrew when working within a limited budget.

The automation that the OVS provided Andrew meant that what would have been a lengthy quality assurance process was a simple and extremely time efficient activity. It also enabled Andrew to confidently publish his results on a number of online data sites.

Andrew Zolnai commented:

“Having been in this business for decades, I cannot see how data validation can be made any easier, while maintaining - indeed increasing - data integrity. I would highly rate the Online Validation Service and recommend other users of spatial data to get online and try the service out. If you have an issue or problem you are working with in a particular dataset, I would suggest getting in touch with them to see what rules they can create to help you overcome it.”

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Socium’s Online Validation Service

Socium’s Online Validation Service chosen to underpin important European data quality project

Cambridge, UK, 29^th February 2012. Socium have today announced that their Online Validation Service has successfully been selected as the Data Quality and Validation Service that will underpin the BCN100 project being run by Sinfogeo SL in Spain.

BCN100 is a new digital cartographic product being released as a result of the collaboration between National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN) and the Spanish Army Geographic Centre (CEGET). After a successful consulting and prototype phase, Sinfogeo SL were awarded a public tender to complete the production of this national dataset which involves the integration of the BCN200 product from IGN with the C series product from CEGET.

The project requires Sinfogeo to update existing content utilising SPOT5 imagery and integrate and harmonise the two differing data models into a single schema for all of the 50 provinces of Spain. Underpinning these activities is the requirement to quality assure all the data to ensure a high quality final product.

The quality assurance process is where Socium and Sinfogeo have been cooperating. Originally Sinfogeo were faced with the prospect of deploying desktop software on all contributing data sites to perform the assurance process. However by utilising Socium’s cloud-based Online Validation Service, contributing organisations are now able to submit their data to a single service and receive a validation report, in a matter of minutes, which identifies data that requires addressing prior to final submission to Sinfogeo. In addition by utilising one service, Sinfogeo can be sure that all data that is received conforms to the same quality standards.

Socium worked in cooperation with Sinfogeo to build a set of validation rules that met the quality assurance requirements of the project. These were then made available within the Online Validation Service and are ready to be utilised as and when data is available. There are no infrastructure costs, capital expenditure or need for local deployment of software and all validation processing is fully automated. As a result, Sinfogeo and the project has saved considerable time and money.

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Socium announced as an approved supplier on the G-Cloud framework

Cambridge, UK, 20^th February 2012 - Socium is pleased to announce that it has been successfully selected for the Software as a Service lot of the Government Procurement Service’s G-Cloud ITT. The opportunity to tender was published on the 18th October 2011 and following a successful bid, Socium’s Online Validation Service has been selected as an approved service on the G-Cloud framework.

The G-Cloud Programme is a cross government initiative and is testament to the government’s commitment to cloud services. There were four lots within the £60m framework which were: Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, Software as a Service and Specialist Cloud Services. As a result of this, the range of services being offered on the G-Cloud, cover all aspects of Cloud Computing.

As a successful applicant, Socium will be able to include details of their cloud based Online Validation Service in the CloudStore, which will be a catalogue of suppliers and services on the G-Cloud Framework. The idea of the CloudStore is to allow Public Sector buyers to easily see and compare services best suited to their requirements and needs and will form an e-marketplace of cloud services.

The Online Validation Service, Socium’s first offering to the market, provides an independent, simple and easy to use way of validating spatial data against a set of standard or user-defined business rules. By providing the service in the cloud, Socium are embracing technology trends and eliminating the need for users to invest in software or infrastructure, whilst still being able to benefit from state of the art technology.

Duncan Guthrie, Managing Director, Socium Limited said:

“We are delighted to have been selected as an approved supplier on the G-Cloud framework. We are already working closely with Local Government organisations across the country and look forward to being able to increase these relationships further through the G-Cloud.

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Socium launches Online Validation Service to users worldwide

Cambridge, UK, 2^nd February 2012 - Following the highly successful UK and Ireland launch of the cloud based, Online Validation Service last November, Socium are today opening up the service to give access to users worldwide.

The Online Validation Service, Socium’s first offering to the market, provides an independent, simple and easy to use way of validating spatial data against a set of standard or user-defined business rules. The validation process takes a matter of seconds to run through and once completed provides the user with a quantitative analysis of their data quality against each of the rules selected.

In addition a user can download the error report in the same file format as they loaded the data e.g. SHP or TAB. This is then ready to load directly into their own GIS application so that they can visualise exactly where the errors are located and which rule each error has broken. Up until now, the download of this report has required users to purchase credits, but Socium are also announcing today that their freemium version of the service has been extended, to enable users of the free rules to download their error report at no charge.

The global launch comes earlier than originally planned and is the result of both the success and uptake seen in the UK and Ireland and the market demand shown by both government and commercial organisations worldwide.

Duncan Guthrie, Managing Director, Socium Limited said:

“We are thrilled to be able to open up the service, to enable users around the world to start benefiting from using the Online Validation Service and very much look forward to working with them. When we launched the company it was our aim to develop the services that we offered in line with our user community’s needs. This is why we have taken our users’ feedback and decided to extend the freemium version to include downloading the error report.

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