GIgateway Newsletter - February 2005
 
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Online User Survey Results - Congratulations! We have a winner...
 

Throughout January we gave you the opportunity to win £50 to spend at Amazon.co uk, simply by completing our online user survey. Lots of you gave a few minutes of your time to provide us with feedback, all of which will be valuable in developing the GIgateway service.

 
  • 78.1% of you had already used GIgateway before, and 95.2% of you said you would be using it again in the future.
 
  • The information pages are the most popular with users at the moment with 61% of you heading there, while 43.8% of you visit GIgateway primarily to make use of the Data Locator.
 
  • Currently, 11% use the service daily or weekly, 37.8% of you monthly, and the rest less frequently, as and when you need to.
 
Here are some of the benefits of using GIgateway that you told us about:

 

"I have not used GIgateway extensively but it has a great deal of geographical data sources all in one place so it will definitely be somewhere I will look next time I am sourcing data."

"A reliable data search engine, reduces the irrelevant information found by general searches."

"Particularly provides excellent information to help my organisation devise internal metadata standards for our mapping data."

"It's a valuable research resource for my studies."

"A useful source of information and news updates about the world of GI."

 
Our congratulations go to Chris Ewing who will be receiving a £50 Amazon voucher by email very soon! Thanks to all of you who took the time to complete the survey.
 
New AGI Director - Robert Mann
 
The AGI welcomed in a new Director, Robert Mann, on January 17th. As Director, Robert is responsible for the management of the contract to provide the GIgateway service and his role will be key in 2005/2006, the final year of the current NIMSA funding stream. Here is Robert's introduction to the AGI membership:
 

"I am a "geographer" by training (and a keen collector of maps) but my career path has not always given me the opportunity to be as directly involved in geography and geographical information as it will do as Director of the Association. 

Before joining the AGI I spent over 5 years living in Paris, working for the Water Division of the French corporation Suez Environnement.  I was responsible for directing, controlling and advising on IS activities and investments (including GIS) in 30 subsidiaries around the world; such as  Northumbrian Water here in the UK, United Water in the USA, and companies in South America, Africa and the Far East.  My job in Paris followed on from a few years running the IS department of a UK water company (which included considerable direct involvement in GIS activities such as improving data quality and rolling out portable GIS kit to mobile technicians). 

Before that I spent a dozen years working as an IT and management consultant for CapGemini (which was known as Hoskyns when I joined). That experience was preceded by another dozen years in various roles in the Greater London Council (primarily town planning, programme management and IS management).  I have also been involved in Market Research and voluntary work in the political arena."
 
If you have a question for Robert regarding GIgateway, please email him on robert.mann@agi.org.uk
 
MetaGenie v2.0 - UK GEMINI release
 
Initial development of the second release of MetaGenie, our popular metadata editing tool, has just started.  The main purpose of the new release is to implement the new GEMINI profile published last October.  However, the opportunity has also been taken to incorporate a number of  changes suggested by users,  and feedback from our metadata fundamentals workshops.  The new version of the tool will also allow flexibility to import data in user's own XML formats and convert them to the GEMINI profile. 
 
MetaGenie v2.0 is being developed by Snowflake Software, and will be released later in the year. 
 


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