EDINA Digimap:  an internet mapping and data service for the UK
Higher Education Community

David Medyckyj-Scott, Hugh Buchanan, Peter Burnhill
EDINA, Data Library, University of Edinburgh


EDINA Digimap is a Web based service for UK Higher Education Institutions
(HEIs), providing online access to Ordnance Survey (GB) digital map
datasets.  The paper will cover the following issues that the creation of
the service has raised:

* Who the stakeholders in the Service are, and what their involvement is.

* What map datasets are made available through Digimap.  These range from
a very detailed dataset, showing individual buildings and gardens, to
contours (at 10m vertical interval), and "road-atlas" style mapping. For
all products there is national coverage although for the large scale data
a rationing mechanism, restricting access to 30% of the data in any one
year, has had to be devised.

* Who is allowed to use the service and what for.

* What copyright restrictions have arisen in providing the service, and
how this impacts in practice.  Specific issues that have arisen include
use in teaching and research, electronic publication v. paper publication,
place of use and data rationing.

The functions of EDINA Digimap can be divided into two types, categorised
by the technical requirements they put on the user's computer: Server side
for "universal" access with minimal restrictions on hardware and browser
software, and minimal learning curve. Client side, powered by Java for
more sophisticated users.

We expect EDINA Digimap to extend as a service in two general directions:
greater breadth of datasets and additional functionality.  The former
could include heterogeneous data, such as aerial photography,
geodemographic data and historic maps. The latter, data integration,
on-screen addition of data, real-time data analysis and simplificiation.

At the end of the paper we will summarise the lessons learnt from the
creation of Digimap will be summarised.