Centre for Geospatial Science moves to new purpose built building (The Nottingham Geospatial Building)

CGS along with IESSG and GRACE have moved to the new Nottingham Geospatial Building on 21 October 2009

This major cross-disciplinary research centre will also provide new technology transfer and business development opportunities. Together it will provide an integrated, purpose built facility building on Nottingham’s reputation as one of the fastest growing scientific centres in the UK.

First Open Source GIS UK Conference is a great success…

OSGIS 2009 was a great success.Thanks to all for their fantastic support for the First Open Source GIS UK Conference…

Check out reports on the conference from delegates

http://www.osgeo.org/tyler/2009/nottingham

http://ollie.blogs.splintdev.geog.ucl.ac.uk/2009/06/osgis-uk-conference/

http://www.gogeo.ac.uk/cgi-bin/resource.cgi?cat=2&newscat=200906#2282

For photos of the conference check   http://picasaweb.google.com/suchithanand76/OSGIS2009#

Congratulations to the winners of OSGIS 2009 Best paper and presentation prizes

We are pleased to announce the winners of OSGIS 2009 prizes

CGS Best Presentation winner for OSGIS 2009 is

Mapping Future Climate : A Case Study for the Deployment of the Open Source Geo-stack in Scalable Web-based Applications
Philip James, Simon Abele, David Alderson,Stephen Pascoe, Ag Stephens
Newcastle University, and British Atmospheric Data Centre, Rutherford Labs, UK

CGS Best Presentation runner up prize for OSGIS 2009
SEXTANTE – The free geoprocessing library
Victor Olaya University of Extremadura, Caceres, Spain

CGS Best Presentation runner up prize for OSGIS 2009
An introduction to Mapwindow
Dr Daniel Ames, Idaho State University, USA

The Wiley BlackWell prizes for best full paper prizes are awarded to the following papers

Development of Sensor Web Applications with Open Source Software
Arne Broring,Eike Hinderk Jurrens, and Simon Jirka from 52� North and Christoph Stasch from the Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster.

The SDIlight OSGEO stack at ITC
Barend Kobben, Rob Lemmens, Javier Morales, Rolf de By, Theodor Foerster, International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC),Enschede, The Netherlands.

Visualising Alternative Futures using Open Source technologies
William Cartwright (RMIT University, Australia)

Congratulations to all winners… Well Done…

JISC funding success

Congratulations to Dr Gobe Hobona for JISC funding success on SPACER project under the Rapid Innovation call. SPACER will use GPS-supported mobile phones to enable learners, teachers and researchers to find relevant location-referenced resources. The 4-month project is led by Professor Jackson and Dr Hobona . The project is endorsed by BGS and EDINA.

SPACER proposes development of a demonstrator prototype that enables mobile phones with built-in positioning devices to query repositories supporting standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) – a global group of over 380 private, public and academic organisations (http://www.opengeospatial.org). The project addresses the need for efficient methodologies in fieldwork during learning, teaching and research.  Historically, a student or researcher conducting fieldwork was only able to search for datasets relevant to their study sites after downloading data from their mobile devices into a computer back at their laboratories. SPACER aims to develop mobile software that improves the process by enabling repositories to be searched whilst the student or researcher is still out in the field. Therefore, the project will consider the possible interfacing of metadata catalogues with GPS-enabled mobile phones, through standards of the OGC.

Jeremy Morley appointed as Deputy Director at the Centre for Geospatial Science

Jeremy Morley from University College, London (UCL), has been appointed as Deputy Director of the Centre for Geospatial Science (CGS) at The University of Nottingham. He takes-up the post in September.  Jeremy was programme director of UCL’s MSc in GIS from 1998-2004 and of its BEng/MEng in Geoinformatics from 2005-9. Over the last 15 years his research has focussed on the mapping of Mars in support of geological analysis; terrain mapping from LiDAR and InSAR; GIS interoperability and mashup WebGIS systems. He has been UCL’s technical representative to the Open Geospatial Consortium since 2004. Jeremy is currently the academic organiser for the AGI’s “GeoCommunity” 2009 Annual Conference and Conference Chair for GISRUK 2010.

CGS is a major multi-disciplinary post-graduate research centre, established in 2005 by The University of Nottingham’s Institute of Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG) and School of Geography.  Its research focus is on spatial data infrastructures (SDI), geospatial intelligence, spatial interoperability and location-based services. Its current multi-million pound research portfolio includes contracts for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, The Technology Strategy Board and the EU. It is part of a recently awarded £5.7m Doctoral Training Centre at Nottingham in Location Aware Pervasive Computing and a £12m award for a Digital Economy Research Hub in the same subject area. It also shares with IESSG and Computer Science in a £700,000 award for positioning and sensor infrastructure. CGS is currently based within the School of Geography and  moves, with IESSG, into a new purpose built building in October 2009.

Professor Mike Jackson, Director of CGS, said: “We are delighted to welcome Jeremy to CGS and The University of Nottingham. His strong research background will further enhance the status that the Centre has achieved in the last few years and enable the Centre to continue to grow its reputation for multi-disciplinary research in the geospatial sciences.”

Jeremy Morley said: “I am very pleased to be joining Professor Jackson at the Centre for Geospatial Science. The Centre has established a strong international presence in the field of GIS, interoperability and services and I look forward to contributing to the further growth of the group and its research.”

New Researchers’ Fund success

Dr Gobe Hobona has been awarded a research grant by the University of Nottingham’s Research Committee under its New Researchers’ Fund for project on “Geospatial Processing of Earth Observation Data in Computational Clouds“. Well done Gobe.

Horizon Digital Economy Research Hub

The Horizon Digital Economy Hub is a new venture representing a £40M investment by Research Councils UK and over 40 partners.

 Horizon aims to: 

• Address the key scientific challenges in the widespread adoption of ubiquitous computing for an inclusive digital society
• Produce landmark user-led applications grounded in deployment ‘in the wild’
• Engage in knowledge transfer, including training and consultancy
• Develop a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers
• Understand societal issues and to engage with public policy

Horizon will focus on the role of ‘always on, always with you’ ubiquitous computing technology in the Digital Economy.

Building on the Digital Britain plan, Horizon will investigate the technical developments needed if electronic information is to be controlled, managed and harnessed — for example, to develop new products and services — for societal benefit.

Horizon Approach

 Our approach involves: 

• Open software platforms
• Development of concepts of ‘open data’
• Understanding the innovation models around open research

The core Horizon research programme will foster widespread availability across society through appropriate open licenses to technology developed.

Horizon brings together researchers with backgrounds in computer science, the geospatial sciences, engineering, psychology, sociology, business, social science, law and the arts to build-in an understanding of people and society in our technology developments from the outset and to ensure we all benefit from these advances. 

Horizon is organized around research themes, each of which connects a group of our external partners with a group of Horizon faculty, and research staff focused on a common agenda. Horizon currently has two planned themes in Transportation and Creative Visiting, and will specifically examine how the digital footprints we leave behind could be harnessed to transform the way those sectors operate. 

For further details please contact:

Dr. Sophie Dale

Horizon Digital Economy Research Hub

c/o School of Computer Science

Jubilee Campus

University of Nottingham

Wollaton Road

Nottingham

NG8 1BB

 Tel: 0115 84 68923

Mobile: +44 (0)7804 151219

Fax: +44 (0)115 951 4239

Email: horizon@nottingham.ac.uk

Web: http://www.horizon.ac.uk

CGS news at GIM International

GIM International has published two CGS news for May 2009. Details at

 http://www.gim-international.com/news/id3782-Geospatial_Data_Research_Think_Tank.html 

 http://www.gim-international.com/issues/articles/id1329-New_WG_Open_Source.html

Horizon Digital Economy Hub and Doctoral Training Centre Student bursaries for LBS 2009

We are pleased to announce 20 student bursaries (each worth £ 120) for high quality MSc/PhD students submitting papers to LBS 2009 to help cover their registration fees for LBS 2009 conference. These bursaries are sponsored by University of Nottingham Horizon Digital Economy Research Hub and Horizon Doctoral Training Centre. More details at http://www.lbs2009.org/

 Eligibility Criteria:

 You are eligible to apply for student bursary if:

• You are currently student in a Masters or PhD program AND
•  You are an author of a full paper/extended abstract that has been accepted for presentation at the LBS 2009.

 Please mention that you wish to be considered for Horizon student bursary when you submit your paper.

 Horizon Doctoral Student Colloquium

 The LBS 2009 committee is pleased to announce a Doctoral Student Colloquium for this year’s LBS conference. The Colloquium will provide doctoral students with the opportunity to present their work to senior faculty in a setting that is relatively informal but that allows for maximum intellectual exchange. Students will receive feedback on their presentation and/or current research from participating faculty and from students’ peers.

More info on Horizon:

 The Horizon Digital Economy Research Hub centre is a new £ 12 million research centre at The University of Nottingham to develop digital technology to transform modern living. This builds on the success of the £ 5.7 million  Horizon Doctoral Training Centre in Location-aware Pervasive Computing at the University of Nottingham.  The Centre for Geospatial Science is part of both Horizon Digital Economy Research Hub centre and Horizon Doctoral Training Centre.

Invitation for expressions of interest for Ordnance Survey Think Tank Session on “Crowd source data capture, geospatial mashups and its impact on NMAs” – 13th July 2009 (Tuesday) at University of Nottingham

The Ordnance Survey has awarded a research contract to the Centre of Geospatial Science (CGS) to investigate future data and data management developments that might impact on Ordnance Survey’s operations and services.

 Please see http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/projects_os.html    for more details.

 In part fulfilment of this contract we are organising a series of Think Tank events to explore relevant technology developments and to better understand how these developments might influence and impact on spatial data capture and usage in the future.

The second of Think Tank events is to be held on 13th July 2009 (Tuesday) at University of Nottingham and will cover the topic of “Crowd sourced data capture, geospatial mashups and its impact on NMAs” 

The Think Tank Meeting will a one-day event with 12 experts drawn from a mix of academic, commercial and industry backgrounds. Selected participants may be invited to give brief presentations but in each case significant time will be allocated for discussion and open exploration of likely developments and potential consequences.  The participants will be divided into four teams (each with 3 members) and will work on a given challenge. The meeting will operate according to Chatham House rules.

Interested participants are invited to submit short position paper (max 2 A4 pages) detailing their potential think tank contribution, expectations, vision and research interest, before 30 May 2009 to Suchith.Anand@nottingham.ac.uk 

 Travel and accommodation costs of all the selected participants will be reimbursed. Selection of invited experts will be made by the Ordnance Survey.

Think Tank Outcomes

• Identify key research trends and developments in this theme
• Identify mid-term (2-5 years) and long-term (6-10 years) research challenges in this theme
• Produce report on the Think Tank findings.