Current research project: ELOGeo
ELOGeo (E-learning for the Open Geospatial Community) is a JISC-funded project based at the Centre for Geospatial Science in partnership with Mimas Centre of Excellence at the University of Manchester.
The project addresses the provision of infrastructure for educating, transferring knowledge and training users and researchers on the effective use of open geospatial services, by providing a set of methodologies, tools and materials. The courses target researchers, non-geospatial experts and members of the general public who want to use open data, standards and tools.
Today many aspects of geospatial science including information, standards and tools are created and developed as "open". The effects of this openness are not only the provision of free access but also to spread knowledge and responsibility to the whole community: users can also be creators and developers, thus the world of open geospatial requires educated and informed users.
The objective of this project is to enable the wider community (not just GIS experts) to make use of open source geospatial tools to solve real world problems. Currently, there is a big learning curve for new users to understand and use these technologies and if a general take-up of them is to be achieved it is necessary that an open, interactive, user friendly learning framework is developed based on case study examples. As part of the project, use cases will be developed in example domains such as transportation, flood mapping and environment management. All use cases build upon previous work and expertise at NGI.
Project partners
Mimas Centre of Excellence, University of Manchester. The Mimas Landmap service is a centralised resource attracting users from a wide range of disciplines; supporting capacity building in the use of spatial data. This project will enrich Landmap with materials from open-geospatial science. Landmap will provide an effective hosting platform, with the resources to maintain the materials and market the new e-learning content to the wider community as part of their marketing plan.
Project runs: 2011, ongoing ..
Project website: http://elogeo.nottingham.ac.uk/
Project contact: Amir Pourabdollah