Education Tidbits

If you’ve not seen it the Google Earth for Educators page has all sorts of resources, lesson plans, info about grants for using the tool in education. (I’m sure some of the ideas can be used with other tools as well.)

- via @manomarks

Northwestern Michigan College’s Water Studies Institute is mapping the bottom of Grand Traverse Bay in a month long project, the second phase of the Grand Traverse Bay Hydrographic Research Project. Student interns from NMC’s Freshwater Studies degree program and Great Lakes Maritime Academy as well as Michigan Sea Grant, are conducting advanced multibeam hydrographic surveys of both east and west arms of Grand Traverse Bay and northern Lake Michigan. All research is being conducted onboard the NMC research vessel Northwestern and continues through Aug. 12 and will produce the first new maps in 80 years. Among the finds in the first phase? A shipwreck.

- Local Edition

A team led by University of Georgia oceanographer Samantha Joye tracked one plume during research voyages in May and June. And, they are heading back to find any others they might have missed. “The plumes are a mixture of seawater and methane gas, oil and other hydrocarbons that are spewing from the broken well a mile below the water’s surface off the coast of Louisiana.” Recent federal reports confirm plumes, which could be a threat to water life, just like the oil is. The tool of choice to find and map the plumes? Sound waves. “The presence of gas changes the speed that sound passes through the water,” Joye explained.

- Miami Herald

Microsoft’s Street Slide - Looking out the Car Window

Microsoft Research’s latest effort unveiled at this week’s Siggraph computer graphics conference is different than Google StreetView, where you are required to look at imagery taken from a spot. You can’t really “travel along” the route. But with Street Slide you can because the images are knit together (photosynth style, is how I’d describe it). Street names, numbers and building logos are pulled out below the imagery for help in navigation. No word on if this will ever come to Bing Maps, but it’s entertaining. Video after the jump.

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Does Your Town, or its Consultant Own Your Geodata?

That’s a question plaguing Rutland, Vermont as it switches mapping providers. The plan is to move from Russell Graphics, which has been serving the town for 24 years, to a new firm Information & Visualization Services. The sticking point? Does Rutland own the digital data created by hand by Russell Graphics such that it can use it for no fee? Dean Russell, owner of Russell Graphics says it owns the data, that in fact the town never contracted for the company to create it. Should the town choose not to buy Russell’s data, the costs for the new provider will rise, but only by a few thousand dollars.

This is a good reminder to include licensing of data in any contract with a consultant.

- Rutland Herald

Report: UK Councils Sharing More Geodata, Services

A PB Business Insights commissioned study titled “Understanding the Future of GIS Usage in the UK Public Sector,” run in June of this year by K2 Advisory surveyed 100 GIS practitioners working for local authority organisations in the UK.  Key stats:

- 44% of local authorities have recently been involved with projects to provide the public with access to mapping data, which was previously only for internal use
- 73% of local authorities expected to provide more location-based services to the public within the next six months
- 47% of local authorities have integrated GIS with core applications such as CRM and ERP systems, for more informed analysis and decision-making

- PBBI UK press release