Digimap for Schools celebrates its first birthday with mystery maps

Digimap for Schools is celebrating its first birthday with a new free mystery map challenge allowing pupils to identify hidden locations using key geographic information.

The new monthly mystery map challenge, www.digimapforschools.blogs.edina.ac.uk/mystery_maps aims to encourage teachers and pupils to discuss geographical features and identify the mystery location.  Teachers and pupils can post their answers to the location of the mystery map on the Digimap for Schools blog and get the answers on Twitter. 

Digimap for Schools is an online application, developed by EDINA, giving schools easy access to a wide range of Ordnance Survey mapping using a simple login and password. The service is available to all pupils regardless of age. It allows schools to access a variety of mapping scales including Ordnance Survey’s most detailed OS MasterMap and the famous OS Explorer mapping at 1:25 000 scale which is ideal for outdoor activity.

Since Digimap for Schools launched in 2010, new tools that allow pupils to measure distance and area using point and click have been added as well as the ability to add customised labels, points and shapes.  Almost 3 000 schools have registered for Digimap for Schools which is open to all schools in Great Britain via an annual subscription.

Anne Robertson, Digimap for Schools Service Manager at EDINA, comments:

‘We have received fantastic feedback on the service with many teachers emphasising ease of use.

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Supporting contingency planning with Ordnance Survey mapping

Mapping data from Ordnance Survey is relied on across the country - from in car satellite navigation systems and mobile phone apps to planning applications and fraud analysis. However, one area which affects us all is how the emergency services and our energy and infrastructure providers rely on accurate geographic information (GI) to protect the country.

A new guide to improving the resilience of critical infrastructure and essential services, published by the Cabinet Office in October 2011, highlights the important role which accurate mapping data plays in improving the resilience of the UK’s critical infrastructure to disruption from natural hazards. The report follows the recent Cabinet Office consultation - Keeping the Country Running: Natural Hazards and Infrastructure.

The guide shares best practice and advice to enable and encourage infrastructure owners, regulators, emergency responders and government to work together to continuously improve the resilience of the UK. The guide encourages the ‘responder’ community to adopt the use of digital mapping and GIS mapping systems as an effective tool in contingency planning. For example, responders are being encouraged to map dependencies to enable more joined up planning and to improve the sharing of critical information. These dependencies include key buildings, water supplies and electricity and gas transmission networks.

Over the last 18 months Ordnance Survey has supported a number of civil contingency planning exercises showing how vital GI can be in emergency situations. These include Exercise Watermark, which was the largest ever flood defence exercise held in the UK. The contingency planning involved over 10 000 people, ten government departments as well as emergency services, utility companies and local authorities. It was led by the Environment Agency and Defra and occurred over four days in March 2011. The exercise tested a number of aspects of preparedness to respond to a severe flood and in particular looked at how emergency responders worked together across regional boundaries.

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Tweeting the changing face of Britain

From today, Ordnance Survey staff across the country will be using the social networking site Twitter to provide live updates as they map the ever changing Great British landscape.

Anyone interested in maps, geography and the vital role they play underpinning daily life is invited to follow their updates to learn more about the extraordinary range of work they do every day.

Working in a range of roles, from surveyors mapping the outer reaches of Scotland and inner city London, to a member of Ordnance Survey’s Flying Unit, each will be tweeting as they go about their work and providing an insight into modern map making.

As the national mapping agency for Great Britain, Ordnance Survey data is relied on by government, businesses and individuals everyday. Everything from planning local bus routes, emergency service response, fraud detection and the digital switchover is underpinned by geographic data.

As such, Ordnance Survey makes some 5,000 changes each day to the national master map and thanks to the work of its 300 surveyors and an extensive aerial photography programme, significant changes are ‘on the map’ within six weeks of them appearing.

Surveyors on the ground make use the latest GPS satellite technology, accurate to just a few centimetres, to captures changes - from the latest developments at the Olympic Park to a new visitor centre on the peak of Snowdon.

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Duke opens new Ordnance Survey head office

Yesterday, His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh officially opened Ordnance Survey's new head office in Southampton.

During his visit The Duke experienced how Ordnance Survey uses 3D technology, similar to that found in cinemas, to pinpoint changes to the landscape. The Duke also met one of Ordnance Survey’s 250 surveyors, who make 5,000 changes a day to the digital mastermap of Great Britain using satellite technology accurate to just a few centimetres.

The Duke then addressed staff at the mapping agency before unveiling a commemorative plaque. The Duke said: "I know from just in the ordinary course of events using Ordnance Survey maps what a remarkable service it provides for people all over the country.  And I do hope you feel what an enormous contribution you’re making to life in this country."

Children from the nearby Explorers nursery were also invited to meet the Duke and waved Union Flags as he arrived and left the building.

More photos from the day can be viewed on the Ordnance Survey Flickr photostream.

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New addressing products now available from Ordnance Survey

The AddressBase range of products, the definitive source of spatial address and property information for England and Wales, are available from today (Friday 30 September).

The new datasets are expected to provide efficiency gains, improve service delivery and encourage partnership working amongst private, public- and third-sector organisations. Accurate addressing data is vital in areas as diverse as transport planning and 999 emergency responses, to fraud detection and mail delivery. 

AddressBase is produced by GeoPlace, a joint venture between Ordnance Survey and the Local Government Group. The new range of addressing products, recently showcased at the AGI conference 2011, are available to the public and private sectors through Ordnance Survey – to the public sector under the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) and through commercial licences to other sectors.

AddressBase, AddressBase Plus and AddressBase Premium are available from 12 noon on Friday 30 September in both CSV and GML format. All three products are maintained from local authority provided data, which is brought together with Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail data by GeoPlace. It combines the best parts of local government’s National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), Ordnance Survey’s OS MasterMap Address Layer 2 products and the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF). 

To find out more about the AddressBase range of products and how to order them, visit Ordnance Survey’s AddressBase http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/addressbase-products