GeoForum 2005

The GeoForum 2005 was in the Huntingdon Rooms, King's Manor, University of York on Friday 4th November.

The main purposes of the event were:

To inform the academic community about a range of current geo-related activities.
To gather views from the academic community about where priorities for further development should lie.

If there are issues or topics you would like to see covered by future GeoForum events, please let us know: edina@ed.ac.uk.

Photos from the GeoForum 2005

Programme

09.45-10.00	Registration and coffee Introduction (PPT file, 112kb)
10.00-10.05	Introduction from William Kilbride, Assistant Director, ADS
10.05-11.15	New Data and Services from the UK satellite data service - Kamie Kitmitto, MIMAS (Presentation to follow)
	Urban design and digital maps (PPT file, 1.2 mb) - Andrew Roberts, CEBE
	Update from the Archaeology Data Service (PPT file, 7.8 mb) - William Kilbride, ADS
	The Future of Geoservices (PPT file, 1.7 mb) - James Reid, EDINA
11.15-11.30	Coffee
11.30-12.15	Some scenes from Planet GIS: geography's accidental success? (PPT file, 488 kb) Professor David Unwin, Birkbeck and University Colleges, University of London GIS should be Geography's great success. Geography in UK was at the forefront of much of its development, but more recently in both research and teaching, academic Geography in UK has not sufficiently valued GIS and its under-pinning geographic information science (GISc). Evidence of the extremely rapid take up of GIS in many different areas is presented, with concerns for how the resulting demands for labour, data, and improved analytical methods, are being met. Apparent contrasts in the reactions of academia in USA with those in UK are highlighted. The talk concludes by asking what can be done in HE and FE further to develop GISc.
12.15-13.45	Lunch
13.45-14.30	Workshop A1: SPLINT: Spatial Literacy in Learning & Teaching - Dr Nick Tate, University of Leicester http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/splint/ (Presentation to follow)	Workshop A2: Data Management: Repositories, Curation and Metadata (PPT file, 10.9 mb) - Anne Robertson & Tony Mathys, EDINA
14.30-15.15	Workshop B1: MasterMap and Other Challenges (PPT file, 2.2 mb) - David Medyckyj-Scott, EDINA
15.15-15.30	Tea
15.30-16.00	Questions & Answers: Panel discussion
16.00	CLOSE

Prof. David Unwin, Keynote

In 2002 David Unwin retired from the Chair in Geography at Birkbeck College London, where he was also Pro-Vice Master responsible for ICT, and from then until last year he was Learning Programmes Director at the ill-fated UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited. For most of his 40 years in higher education he was involved with the developments that gave rise to what we now know as geographic information science. Much of this is summarized in his 2003 text on 'Geographic Information Analysis', co-authored with David O'Sullivan. Earlier this year he spent three months teaching at the University in Redlands, CA.