On Thursday Nick and I presented our work on Urban Tapestries to a group of researchers and geographers at the Ordnance Survey. We had some very encouraging conversations and discussions with them about the future potential for public authoring and collaborative cartography systems, and how the Research and Innovation group at OS are keen to find ways to interact with researchers and developers working in this area.
Their enthusiasm for finding new collaborative research models and ways to devise prototypes and tests that engage with the public is very inspiring and helps shift the traditional perception of the OS as a monolithic and impenetrable organisation that is only interested in licensing their data to large corporations. We are looking forward to an ongoing and fruitful collaboration with them on Urban Tapestries.
Posted by Giles Lane at February 7, 2004 03:15 PMI'm glad the OS are seeming receptive to collaborative creative models. Looking back at my notes from the visit we paid them last summer, discussing semantic web driven geoannotation and collaborative mapping, their reception was very guarded, and i was left with the impression that they were only really prepared to collaborate on business terms.
http://www.zooleika.org.uk/map/ordnance.html
i'm curious as to who you met with - my contacts have just been at the geek level - and to what extent the OS are receptive to providing standards-driven open APIs to the UK dataset.
We talked to Mark Freeman in their Innovations Dept. (? not sure of the actual department name), who is also a scientist-type there. (We've demo's Urban Tapestries to a collection of others, but he's our main contact). The reaction at the OS has been universally positive to our work, and they are quite eager to find a way to offer more of their wares than they are allowed to under the current Crown Copyright regime. I would expect that any modifications to their data availability will be made incrementally, as any wholesale release of data (as through the API you suggest) will probably be perceived -- rightly or not -- as a threat to their monetary base.
Unfortunately I see this as taking years to change, and it will probably be through Parliament changing the basis under which they can offer their data. Or the solution will come from data created elsewhee -- either on a European level or through collaborative mapping efforts a la the WAAG experiment.
Posted by: Nick West at March 8, 2004 03:13 PM