Monday, July 6. 2009

James Fee's Keynote from FME User Conference

I noted James Fee (of the James Fee GIS Blog and RSP Architects Ltd.) presented the keynote at the 2009 FME International User Conference in my event coverage. Safe has allowed us to embed the video here for all to see. We are happy to share this presentation titled "Removing Barriers to Data Sharing."

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Going Local for Online Degrees

One upshot of the rise in online degree programs (I teach in one) is that many "commuter schools" have lost significant enrollment. Many are working to integrate an online component to keep those students.

But, findings suggest that as students get more comfortable with online education, location does matter:

The bottom line is that even online, for many students there seems to be no place like home. Surveys show around two-thirds of consumers interested in online education would rather do it at a local institution, notes Richard Garrett, program director and senior research analyst with Eduventures Inc., an education-consulting firm.

That preference may fade in the future, he says. But for now, "there's a strong sense, at least so far, that geography isn't removed from the equation by any means."

- The Chronicle of Higher Education

Google Steps into Map-based Real Estate Search in Australia/NZ/U.S.

The code for the tool was developed in Sydney and launches today in Australia and New Zealand. It has already been added to real estate searches in the U.S. Providers of real estate data can submit their listing, but some in the region have already said they will not, arguing they offer better portals. Some third party developers will no doubt think this is a land grab (ha!) for their business.



This is perhaps no different than when the large GIS technology vendors slowly but surely put their third party developers out of businesses. You have been warned.

- Brisbane Times

Why Your GIS Conference Should include non-GIS Presentations

Tim O'Reiily tweeted about a new exhibition at the City Museum of New York profiled in the New York Times. It's a project that recreates the natural history of the island of Manhattan, aka Manahatta. Is this an article I'd read or exhibit I'd attend? Not necessarily. But, include it in a "GIS" conference, and yes, I'd attend the presentation. I did; at the NYS Summit in 2008. And it was memorable.

How many presentations at today's events are really that memorable? Not so many. Which are memorable? One characteristic of the really memorable ones, so far as I'm concerned: presentations where we are not talking to ourselves. This was one of those. Consider that when putting together your conference program; I know we are doing that for the Location Intelligence Conference.

Turning a GIS Commission into a Political District to Ensure its Longevity

Louisiana Rep. Hollis Downs, of Ruston, introduced legislation that transforms the Lincoln Parish Geographic Information System Commission into a GIS district. Sounds like semantics, but it's more than that.

The legislation formalizes the entity meaning it can receive grants and will continue on. The current Commission has a year to year existence. Further, now that it's a political subdivision, the seven sponsoring agencies are required to fund it.

Even the governor’s office was behind the change; they see the district as a model for other parishes.

The seven agencies share hardware, software and information and after 16 years have invested $2.5 million into the system.

- Rushton Leader

Yahoo Placemaker Update: GeoMaker

Placemaker is a developer tool to take locations from unstructured text and pop them onto a map. With some time on his hands, London-based Yahoo developer Chris Heilmann, made it more accessible to non-programmers in GeoMaker, which debuted July 1 (when many in the U.S. were getting ready for a big holiday weekend). The resulting autogenerated comes in two forms - an embeddable map (you need a Map Developer key) or the data in the geo microformat.

Heilmann is looking for feedback and plans to release the code as open source in the future.

- Yahoo Developer Blog Post (includes video demo)

via TechCrunch