ConsultancyGIS News
New Course for Local Government Managers and Elected Members
Salford GIS have recently launched a new half-day training course intended to de-mystify the use and application of geographic information systems within UK local government. Once seen as the realm of specialists in Planning and Technical Services, the use of maps through GIS is now being recognised as a powerful and corporate tool within local authorities.
The company has been providing practical, hands-on training courses in desktop GIS products for over 10 years. However, the commitment to using and managing these systems at an operational level needs to be matched by understanding and leadership at a management level in order for the full potential and benefits to be realised.
Recognition of the need for greater senior-level awareness of GIS has led to the development of this new, half-day, seminar-style training course. Through the use of actual examples and case studies, the course provides a clear and logical explanation of what GIS is and the benefits that are being achieved.
The course is designed to be run at client’s offices for anywhere between four and forty delegates. Holding the courses on-site in this way enables Management Team members and/or Elected Members to attend with the minimum of disruption to daily schedules. The informal yet professional approach of the course provides an entertaining and information-packed insight into the application of GIS for the non-technically minded.
"Very informative and well presented. Packed but enjoyable."
Gary Devine, Technical Information Officer, Environment Operations, Trafford Council
"Very interesting and enjoyable course - would recommend. The practical examples were especially useful."
Helen Morrison, Senior Customer Services Advisor, West Lancashire District Council
For further information please click here.
14th April 2008
Practical GIS Awareness for Local Government Managers
Satellite Navigation, Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth....the world has gone map crazy!
Salford GIS Ltd are pleased to announce the launch of a new Mapping Awareness course aimed specifically at Local Government senior management. The course takes the form of a half-day seminar which will focus on the practical knowledge that a senior/middle manager will require to enable them to get the most out of the technology and their limited budgets.
The course will cover;
- An introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for managers
- The importance of the Local Land and Property Gazetteer
- Availability of local, regional and national data for use in GIS
- The use of GIS alongside existing operational systems
- Practical examples to illustrate how GIS is being deployed within UK Local Government
- Service improvements and efficiencies through the use of GIS
- GIS as a mechanism for interacting with the public
- The benefit of GIS in a shared services environment to aid inter-departmental and agency working
- Data management in a GIS environment
- Where next for mapping? - Exploiting new technologies
The first course will take place at Technology House in Salford on the morning of Thursday 3rd April 2008. The price is just £99 per delegate and includes an executive lunch - discounts are available for multiple bookings from a single organisation.
The course is also available to be run as a one-off at your offices, for all your senior managers, and could be tailored specifically to the technology within your organisation.
For further information or to book your place on the April course please call Paul Coward (0161 278 2447) or Chris Nelson (0161 278 2445) or e-mail paul@salford-gis.co.uk.
Download The Booking Form here
28th January 2008
Save money on GIS training
For our "Introduction to ArcView" training course we're offering reduced course fees for dates scheduled in January, February and March! Single places are available at £450 each (were £550), and if you book two or more people on the same course they're only £400 per person!
Remember these prices only apply to new bookings on the January, February and March ArcView 9.2 course dates, so don't miss out!
Or why not stretch your training budget with a season ticket! This enables customers to purchase a block of training "credits" in advance, entitling them to a significant discount and the flexibility of using them for either MapInfo or ArcView, or both!
The training season ticket costs just £2000 for 10 delegate days (or any multiple of 10 days), redeemable on any scheduled Salford GIS training course of any duration. And the credits remain valid for a full 12 months from the date of purchase.
16th January 2008
Local Hotels
To help our training delegates, and anyone else who may be visiting us and who may be looking for overnight accomodation, we've added a local hotel finder to our 'contact us' section.
This lists the nearby hotels along with guide nightly prices and a link to the hotel web site. From it you can get an idea of how close the accomodation is to our offices.
Take a look now.
This use of Google Maps to display data is easily replicated - if you have spatial data you'd like to display in this way on your website, give us a call!
Nearby Hotels
30th November 2007
Support Prices Frozen
Salford GIS are pleased to announce that they have once again frozen the costs of their bronze, silver and gold support contracts which continue to give their clients fantastic value for money.
Bronze support can be purchased for as little as £750 for a twelve month period and as customers step up to Silver and Gold support contracts they are rewarded with inclusive days on site depending upon their usage of the service.
With vendor direct technical support now becoming less personal and increasingly automated, Salford GIS guarantee you the individual attention to solve your GIS problems. Real help is just a phone call away.
So why not call us now and discuss your requirements? Technical Support Factsheet
1st November 2007
1Spatial and Salford GIS team for Spatial Data Quality Control B
31st July 2007, Cambridge, UK. Salford GIS, the first 1Spatial Radius Studio Practitioner in the United Kingdom, recently held a half-day seminar entitled ‘Spatial Data - Fit for Purpose? Fit for Sharing?’ at the URBIS in Manchester. The event, geared for GIS managers and IT consultants, was well attended by a cross-section of Local Government and private sector organisations.
The Seminar focused on the ‘fit for purpose’ key message , by outlining a methodology that enables organisations to discover how spatial data conforms to business rules, how to highlight any errors breaking those rules or exceptions to the rules and rectify the discrepancies. By doing this, organisations can ensure the integrity, and compliance, of their spatial data once it has been certified as ‘fit for purpose’.
Chris Nelson, Director of Salford GIS, provided the introduction for the seminar by highlighting the value of spatial data quality control and how this impacts business efficiency. Mike Sanderson, CEO of 1Spatial presented around this theme on ‘Spatial Data Quality - A Forgotten Common Sense.’ Paul Coward, also of Salford GIS then presented on Data Quality Assessment, outlining the process around producing fit for purpose data through the rules-based conformance checking and data cleaning capabilities of 1Spatial’s Radius Studio Product. This was followed by two case studies, taken from Local Authorities, demonstrated by Nick Hall, Technical Director at Salford GIS.
Paul Coward, Director, Salford GIS, commented:
‘With our traditional desktop GIS approach to checking data quality we would typically only be able to analyse 1 or maybe 2 layers at a time. With complex queries the processing could take many hours with standard desktop GIS and after hours of processing we would regularly find that the query needed to be re-written. With Radius Studio real interoperability is possible because we can process multiple layers from multiple data stores. The performance gains are significant, seconds or minutes compared to hours, and at the same time we can quantitatively measure the data quality levels.’
Steven Ramage, Business Development Director at 1Spatial added:
‘ We are delighted that as a recognised, leading independent consultancy, Salford GIS, our first Radius Studio Practitioner in the United Kingdom, was able to demonstrate the value of using Radius Studio so quickly. It is important for us to work with expert partners like this in the 1Spatial Community, our partner network. As pioneers of the Radius Studio Practitioner Programme they join other international partners like Simon Greener in Australia and TerraLogik in Canada. This type of collaboration is essential for successful partnering and we were very pleased with the high calibre of attendees.’
For more information about this approach to spatial data quality management please contact chris@salford-gis.co.uk or paul@salford-gis.co.uk.
2nd August 2007
FREE Half-Day Data Quality Seminar
SPATIAL DATA - FIT FOR PURPOSE? FIT FOR SHARING?
Location: URBIS, Cathedral Gardens, Manchester, M4 3BG
Date: Tuesday 17th July 2007
Time: 10:00 (Registration and refreshments from 9:30)
The creation, collection and maintenance of spatial data is a major investment for most organisations, and any inaccuracies or inconsistencies in the raw data can be compounded leading to mis-guided decisions, lack of effectiveness and inefficiencies.
Are you confident that:
- your spatial data is as accurate as it could be?
- each dataset is consistent with related datasets?
- the data is wholly reliable and fit for purpose?
- data users are making the right business-decisions?
If you have concerns about any of the above then this seminar is aimed at you. The seminar will take place on Tuesday July 17th at the URBIS in Manchester City Centre and is to be hosted by Salford GIS in conjunction with 1Spatial.
The seminar will cover the importance of spatial data quality; it will outline a methodology to enable you to discover how your own data conforms; consider the options available for rectifying issues and the steps that can be taken to ensure your data remains accurate and compliant once certified.
Itinerary
9:30 – 10:00 Registration and refreshments
10:00 – 10:15 Welcome and Introduction
10:15 – 10:45 Spatial Data Quality – A Forgotten Common Sense, 1Spatial
10:45 – 11:15 Data Quality Assessment – A Proposed Methodology, Salford GIS
11:15 – 11:45 Data Quality Certification – A Case Study, Salford GIS
11:45 – 12:15 Discussion Forum
12:15 – 13:30 Buffet lunch and close
28th June 2007
Salford GIS to be Radius Studio Practitioner Pioneers
Cambridge, UK. 1Spatial announces Salford GIS as a new Channel Partner and early participant in the Radius Studio Practitioner Programme.
Salford GIS’s involvement in the 1Spatial Community and the Radius Studio Practitioner Programme will enable them to enhance the services that they offer to customers in Great Britain. Access to the Radius Studio spatial data integration and quality control tools will enable Salford GIS to make objective assessments of spatial data quality and offer solutions for resolving issues. Assessments are based on a quantitative measurement of spatial data conformance with business rules in order to verify the fitness for purpose of their spatial data.
The act of conflating or aggregating spatial data from multiple, disparate sources, when much of it was collected before the onset of more precise positioning technologies like GPS means that the data often needs to be transformed. The spatial data transformation typically takes place as part of integrating back-office departmental applications to web-based information systems. Radius Studio measures and controls spatial data quality as part of these transformation exercises and helps quantify the migration task.
Independent consultants play a critical role in these customer data migrations, hence the creation of the Radius Studio Practitioner Programme. Under the 1Spatial practitioner programme, independent consultants can be trained and become experts in Radius Studio. Practitioners can use the product to create new data models for their customers by examining existing data and extracting business rules that they conform to, thereby providing superior data quality and improving the information used by customers in decision-making. A number of organisations around the world have been identified as pioneers in this area and Salford GIS is one of them.
Salford GIS is an independent GIS consultancy, offering impartial advice on how to rectify any issues identified and advising clients how they can provide quality procedures for ongoing spatial data management, as well as data accessibility and sharing. The company is respected and established within the GIS marketplace.
Chris Nelson, Director, Salford GIS commented:
"We are hoping for a long and successful collaboration with 1Spatial through our involvement in the Radius Studio Practitioner Programme. The partnership will bring together our detailed knowledge of the creation, maintenance and use of spatial data across a wide range of business areas with a comprehensive and powerful set of tools that will allow us to undertake a more rigorous, structured and objective assessment of customer’s data.
Salford GIS have been involved in the provision of spatial data services for many years, initially as a GIS data capture bureau but more recently as an independent GIS consultancy company. The spatial data analysis and fix up tools provided by 1Spatial through Radius Studio will complement the existing Salford GIS skills and experience."
Steven Ramage, Business Development Director and lead contact for the 1Spatial Community added:
"We are very pleased that a well-established, independent consultancy like Salford GIS has recognised the value offered through Radius Studio and that they have joined like-minded organisations in the 1Spatial Community. Data quality is raising its profile as senior managers realise that organisational efficiency and Key Performance Indicators could be improved through successful spatial data quality management."
For more information on Salford GIS, please visit: www.salford-gis.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1223 420414
Fax : +44 (0)1223 420044
Email : abbie.beckford@1spatial.com
About 1Spatial
1Spatial is the world leader in the certification of spatial data quality. We have been providing operational solutions to organisations with large spatial databases for more than 20 years. Laser-Scan customers include prestigious organisations around the world in fields such as Defence, National Mapping Agencies, Government and Utilities. 1Spatial's solutions are designed around the full Oracle technology stack including Oracle Spatial. Our solutions and services validate, clean and merge geo-spatial datasets, specialising in automated spatial data management and correction. We ensure that your business critical spatial data are fit for purpose for electronic processing, and that maximum value is obtained from the enormous investment made in spatial data collection through sharing, effective integration with business processes, and efficient reuse: www.1spatial.com
25th April 2007