Alternative Access Project: Mobile Scoping Study Final Report



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Example of a GPS trace where you cannot immediately tell which side of the road the pedestrian is on – from Steed and Milton [34]
Digimap OS Mastermap was essential in the analysis stage both to visualize results but perhaps more importantly to improve the accuracy of the GPS traces. Using knowledge of building footprints, the geographic extent of trail and features such as bus stops and junctions on the route the authors were able go from plotting maps of pollution at a 20m scale to a 5m scale.
Even for those that do possess advanced skills in GIS, interviews we conducted suggest that we could do a lot more to assist educators in exploiting Digimap for field trip work. The suitability of data download is critical, as most of the time field trip cannot rely on web access, so the data has to be downloaded and cached on the device. Those that have been through the process of downloading our data and transferring it to mobile have not found it particularly easy. Typically more than one product is wanted for fieldtrip work so download facilities that only allow one product ( e.g. OS Mastermap, Historic, Geology) to be downloaded are not optimal. Even when the field trip organizer has downloaded all the content they will often have to use a desktop GIS to realign and rescale the products so that they can be layered into a composite map of the field trip area. Speaking to field trip organizers it is clear that for the purposes of mobile a much simpler download tool is needed, that simply allows the user to select an area of interest and obtain a cacheable dataset that incorporates data from a number of products and collections ( OS, Geology, Historic) that can be easily deployed on a range of mobile devices.
One solution is to create a new download service that allows downloads of data across collections in addition to the existing collection oriented downloaders. Changes to the current licensing regime may facilitate this as it should lead to more institutions subscribing to the full set of Digimap collections rather just Ordnance Survey. However we need to recognize that only a limited number of people will have the technical skills to make use of raw data and deploy it to a mobile device. We suspect a much wider group of people would want to use Digimap data for fieldtrip work if we could make the process as simple as panning to an area in a map a clicking a “make this map mobile” button.
Bringing this requirement together with the work we have done in the technical evaluation strand of the scoping study on HTML5 Cache and HTML Local Storage we think it might be possible to extend the existing “My Maps” functionality in Digimap ROAM so that when a map is bookmarked an HTML5 Cache manifest is created with links to all the map images required to view and navigate a 1km area around the map.

Once the map is bookmarked in this way the user can retrieve the bookmark link (for example via QR code) on an HTML5 compliant mobile browser which will then automatically download all the images and features and store them in the browser for later use in the field. The technical issues described in the evaluation work we did on HTML5 Cache and HTML5 Local storage would need to be addressed but the simplicity of the solution is appealing.

As well as use in the field, Digimap also has an important role in the preparation and planning of the trip. For example a botany graduate[35] employed both modern and historic maps to locate potential sites for monkshood native habitats. Ideally we would be able to go one step further, allowing Digimap users to easily transfer the work they have done preparing for a field trip ( deciding where to go ) to actually using the material in the field on a mobile device. Similarly, once the field exercise is completed any data gathered during the field exercise could be reviewed by superimposing the data on the original field material or incorporating the data into an automatically generated micro site that provides a summary of the places visited and observations recorded [36]. The augmented “map table” described in the section below could be another mechanism for students to share and reflect on their experience in the field while events are still fresh in their mind. The conclusion from this is that the design of a Mobile Digimap offering to support fieldtrip work must address an integration of activity before, during and after the field exercise. This was a point stressed by many of the people we spoke to and must be the guiding principle for any Digimap fieldtrip implementation.
It is also clear from interviews that EDINA could do some low tech things to help users without building new or amending existing software. Some simple ideas that were suggested to us included creating pre-packaged map stacks for UK campus locations that can be downloaded and used on mobile devices for campus based applications without any post processing, creating a series of simple learning resources explaining how to get started in developing location based services and open sourcing code for performing simple geospatial operations such as converting long/lat to various projections. Some of these ideas are already being implemented in GoGeo, ShareGeo and the geo mobile blog.


3.1.1 Field Study User Engagement Recommendations





  • Develop a simple multi product download tool that makes it simple to obtain and port mapping data to mobile devices.




  • Investigate potential to integrate Digimap data into a Mediascape style authoring tool. JISC should open discussion with Calvium to leverage existing user community.




  • Enhancement to ROAM “My Maps” to enable one click caching of an area of interest on the user’s phone.




  • Prepare pre-packaged campus map stacks to support campus based activity.




  • Prepare to simple “How to” geo mobile teaching resources and continue to reach wider community of mobile developers through geo mobile blog.


    1. 3.2 Augmented Reality

AR is an emerging technology that has great potential for creating innovative teaching and learning experiences by “enhancing the user’s perception and interaction with the real environment by superimposing the real world with virtual information that appear to coexist in the same space as the real world.” [37]


The widespread use of Augmented Reality in HE/FE is suddenly feasible as devices equipped with camera rendering, location and orientation sensors (GPS, compass, accelerometers) are much more affordable and ubiquitous [38]. We have recently seen a wave of Augmented Reality applications such as Layar [6] and Wikitude [7] launched on popular devices such as iPhone and Android bringing this technology to a mass market for the first time.
There are already a few notable examples of Digimap data and services being employed to create augmented reality applications on a range of mobile devices. The section on field work already highlighted the SPLINT [18] team’s use of augmented reality to enhance real scenes with hidden (geological) and past (glaciated) landscapes [19]. Researchers at City University, London, describe an educational game for GI Science students where a 3d urban landscape was superimposed onto tangible marker cards which the students fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle [37]. OS Mastermap data was used, along with separately sourced digital terrain data for the rooftops to create a 3d model of urban landscape.
The data flow for creating the 3d reconstruction in this paper is representative of the general approach ( see for example [39] and [40] ) to creating virtual urban landscapes for use in mobile and elsewhere.



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