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Infrastructural responsibilities for Digimap Collections

The provision of suitable infrastructure, managed by local support staff, is critical to the successful uptake of data from all Digimap Collections.

The support of end users can be divided into:

  • registration and administration
  • support for users in the use of the service and products from it prior to, during and after use of the service
  • supported IT facilities for use of the service, primarily computers, software and printers

These three areas of support may well be most easily provided by a team of different individuals. In distributed sites, more than one individual may undertake the same activity.

EDINA runs Digimap training courses for members of staff from each institution which subscribes to a Digimap Collection. These training courses are repeated at regular intervals.

Registration and administration

  1. User Registration

    Users of some Collections (notably, the Ordnance Survey Collection, Geology Digimap and Marine Digimap) need to be individually registered with Digimap in order to gain access to the data. Access to all Digimap Collections is by individual username and password. These are either allocated by subscribing institutions, not by EDINA, and will be the same username and password used to access many electronic resources. Digimap is only accessible via the UK federation. This means that all users must have a username and password which will operate with their local institutional systems. Each institution will operate a username and password system which will allow access to electronic resources using either their own UK federation Identity Provider (IdP), or with OpenAthens (outsourced IdP). Access via institutional IP address is not available.

    Local support staff are responsible for administering the registration process. They are also responsible for acquainting users with the conditions under which they are permitted to make use of the Collections available through Digimap.

    The following exception applies to individual registration for Digimap's Ordnance Survey Collection:

    • Casual reference use will be undertaken by nominated site support staff, on behalf of the user, from a computer located within the institution's library.

  2. Data Care and Security

    Some Sub-Licence Agreements require that Digimap users and their institutions follow certain procedures concerning any maps or data downloaded from Digimap. Local support staff are responsible for familiarising each user with the appropriate copyright and terms of use for each Collection subscribed to. The Responsible Officer for Data Care and Security and their Deputy have additional responsibilities.

  3. Liaison with EDINA and Other Support Organisations

    Local support staff are responsible for liaison with EDINA, including providing feedback about use of Digimap, and any difficulties encountered.

    They also participate in an informal network of support staff across subscribing sites which exists to encourage the use of spatial data. EDINA view this network as an important resource to distribute knowledge about the use of spatial data within the academic community as a whole. EDINA facilitates the network in various ways, e.g. through user forums and JISCmail lists. Involvement of local support staff in this network is an important factor in ensuring the successful use of these data collections throughout the academic community.

  4. Publicising Digimap

    Local support staff are responsible for publicising the existence of Digimap and the availability of the services within their institution. EDINA provides posters and flyers to assist advertising. The institution should make arrangements for the distribution of service and data documentation.

Supporting users of Digimap

Local assistance from someone who has experience with spatial data (as distinct from paper maps) is very useful in supporting Digimap users. Individuals with specialist expertise in the use of geological or marine data will also be of help to users of Geology Digimap and Marine Digimap.

  1. Pre-Use

    Local support staff are responsible for meeting the training requirements of individual end users. The exact content and range of local training is left to the discretion of local support staff. Furthermore, local support staff are likely to:

    • run Digimap awareness sessions
    • liaise with teaching staff

    To assist in this, EDINA run training courses in the use of Digimap for site representatives and local support staff, and hope that the material from these courses will be appropriate for use with end users. Additional information and material is available on the EDINA Digimap web site.

  2. Direct User Support

    Local support staff are responsible for providing support to users of the service on:

    • how to use the service
    • copyright terms and conditions
    • general queries about data
    • the selection of which data to map or download depending on the task in hand (indication of the fitness for purpose of the data)

    Local support staff are also required to:

    • liaise with EDINA staff regarding the operation of the service
    • pass user queries on to EDINA when appropriate
    • pass information about any problems with data to EDINA
    • represent their institution's interests in the service
    • produce site-specific support documentation (if desired, using templates supplied by EDINA)
    • recommend additional material to be added to the EDINA Digimap web site
    • direct users to appropriate support for GIS and specialist data use within their institution

    Within the Ordnance Survey Collection EDINA provides the means within the service for users to access local support information, such as how to contact local support staff and the location of suitable printers. In order to use this facility, an institution needs to:

    • produce a series of web pages (for which EDINA provides templates if required)
    • install the web pages on a web server
    • inform EDINA of the URL for the top page

    This facility will be extended to all Digimap Collections in due course.

    EDINA stores this URL and automatically includes the URL into the EDINA Digimap interface for users identified as being from that institution.

Technical facilities required

  1. Hardware

    1. For all EDINA Digimap Collections

      EDINA Digimap is a web-based service, which has been designed to run on as wide a range of computer hardware as possible.

      Minimum Requirements:

      • Internet connectivity
      • PC, Macintosh or UNIX workstations with TCP/IP installed
      • 64 Mb RAM

      There is no minimum requirement for monitor resolution, but to keep the amount of scrolling required by a user to an acceptable level, we recommend a resolution of at least 1024 x 768.

    2. File size and data storage requirements

      Users do not require any local disk space to view maps or to print maps in GIF format. To download data, or to print maps in EPS or PDF format, temporary disk space is required on either a network or local drive. File sizes for these tasks are very variable, and are discussed elsewhere.

  2. Software

    1. Digimap

      EDINA Digimap has been designed to work with any recent web browser software, on PC, Mac or UNIX hardware.

      Minimum Requirements:

      • graphical Web browser
      • support for frames and tables
      • cookies enabled

      Any PC running Windows XP is likely to be adequately equipped to run Digimap.

      A Web browser that supports JavaScript enhances the graphical user interface.

      We recommend that on a PC you use:

      • Internet Explorer version 7 or later
      • Opera version 7 or later
      • Mozilla Firefox version 3.0 or later

      We recommend that on a Mac you use:

      • Internet Explorer version 5 or later
      • Safari v.1 or later

    2. Carto

      Digimap's Carto mapping facility provides advanced cartographic functionality and requires a Web browser that supports Java and JavaScript. Note that Java is only supported on Macintosh OS X.

      Additional Requirements for Carto:

      • Java plugin version 1.6 or later
      • JavaScript

      Requirements for using Carto are given in more detail prior to using the facility and in the service Help pages.

  3. Networks

    If your institution is running a firewall, this may have an impact on the advanced functionality provided in Carto. Please contact EDINA if you think this is a problem.

    If your institution is running a Networked Cache Server you should set the timeout for reading from the server to be at least 10 minutes.

  4. Printing facilities

    1. Formats

      Digimap allows printing of graphic images (maps) in four formats: GIF, PNG, PDF and EPS (Encapsulated PostScript). Not all formats are available for all Digimap facilities. Other formats may be added in the future. Users need to be able to print these maps.

      All simple mapping facilities enable printing at A4 size. Carto enables printing at sizes up to A0 (subject to availability of suitable printers).

      Users are able to print GIF and PNG images directly from EDINA Digimap, using their browser's Print option. 300 dpi is the minimum recommended printer resolution, but much better output will be achieved with a higher resolution printer. Similarly, a colour printer will provide better printed results than black and white.

      To print EPS files (which produce much higher quality images), users must download an EPS file, and then print this file locally. EPS file sizes may be large. For example, an A3 map based on Strategi data will be about 20 MB.

      For printing EPS files, PostScript Level 2 printers are required, ideally allowing colour printing. For printing A4 colour maps, 6 Mb of memory is recommended for 600 dpi laser printers; memory requirements for other printer configurations vary and are dependent upon whether the printer supports spooling.

      For users of Carto, you may wish to consider the central purchase of a large format (A0) printer, capable of printing PostScript files.

    2. Charging

      As an institution you will probably want to have a charging mechanism in place for printers intended for Digimap output. It is up to you as an institution to set the rates, accounting mechanisms etc. for charging for output. These may already exist in your institution.

  5. Software support for mapping and data

    If users download data through Digimap, they may need support in its use. This will require provision of Geographical Information System (GIS) or Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. Some suitable application packages are available through Eduserv Chest. Others are available on the open market and may or may not be available with an academic discount. Hardware requirements for the use of such software should be provided with the software.