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Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection
Benefits and Impact 2012/2013

EDINA undertook a survey of Digimap users from November 2012 to February 2013. The survey was accessed from the Digimap homepage and the link was emailed to users.

445 valid responses were received, a summary of which is presented here:

Uptake by discipline, role and purpose

Discipline

Respondents selected their discipline from the list shown below; they could select more than one discipline and could specify “Other”. The disciplines specified in under other were put into one of the other disciplines where appropriate.

A broad range of disciplines were represented in the responses however Architecture and Planning and Geography and Environment accounted for 25% and 24% respectively. Agriculture, Food and Forestry (8%); Biological Sciences (7%); Engineering (which includes Civil Engineering) (7%) Humanities (which contains Archaeology) (7%); and Physical Sciences (which includes Earth science) (5%) made up the bulk of the remaining disciplines.

Discipline	Number	Percentage
Agriculture, food, and forestry	56	8%
Architecture and planning	165	24%
Biological sciences	52	7%
Business and management studies	8	1%
Communication and media studies	8	1%
Creative and performing arts	7	1%
Education and research methods	28	4%
Engineering	46	7%
Geography and environment	175	25%
Humanities	46	7%
Law	3	0%
Mathematics and computer science	22	3%
Medicine including dentistry	9	1%
Modern languages and area studies	3	0%
Nursing, midwifery and allied health	4	1%
Physical sciences	34	5%
Psychology	4	1%
Social sciences	19	3%
Veterinary medicine	5	1%
Other	8	1%

Role

The large majority of survey respondents were Students. This is reflected in the roles of users registered to use the service.

Purpose

Respondents were asked for what purposes they were using Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection, they could tick all options that applied to them in this question.

Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection is mostly being used for coursework, 24%; research was a close second at 22%, though this grows to 41% when you combine it with the postgraduate and undergraduate theses.

The teaching and support options made up 24% of the use, when combined with coursework this indicates that significant proportion of the use of Digimap (48%) is for the creation or completion of taught material.

User Comments

• “Mapping local distributions of the endangered Tansy beetle (Chrysolina graminis) and its food plant.” Researcher, Higher Education Institution.
• “I am a fine arts student. I used Digimap to successfully find out where an artist had made her pictures on the Pembroke coast. I am now developing my own artwork and for this want to find out the contour lines around the coast where I live.” Undergraduate, Fine Arts, Arts University College at Bournemouth.
• “Using it for assessing flood risk; locating infrastructure; visualisation of case study sites.” Researcher, Further Education Institution.

Perceived quality of the service

Recommendation

When users were asked if they would recommend Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection, 92% agreed or strongly agreed; only 2% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

User Comments

• “Ease of access, comprehensiveness of data available, speed of delivery.” Postgraduate, Higher Education Institution.
• “Digimap is easy to use, the tool bars are self-explanatory and it doesn't take the memory up that a GIS program uses.” Information Professional, Higher Education Institution.
• “An invaluable source of otherwise expensive datasets which if not available through Digimap would be unaffordable for most researchers, students etc.” Student, Higher Education Institution.

Perceived Ease of Use

65% of respondents found Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection easy or very easy to use; only 12% found it difficult or very difficult.

User Comments

• “It makes life so much simpler.” Student, Higher Education Institution.
• “The collection is so complete! Apparently there's help available, but I've never needed it. It's very intuitive.” Postgraduate, Higher Education Institution.
• “Comprehensive, easy to use - all round brilliant!!” Information Professional, Higher education Institution.

Perceived Time Saving

The survey asked if the users work would take longer without Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection, 88% of respondents Agreed or strongly agreed; only 3% disagreed.

User Comments

• “It is a very rapid source for site information for student projects. Always used as a first point of reference.” Lecturer, Higher Education Institution.
• "[Without Digimap] I'd have to spend time sourcing OS data directly from suppliers. Time would also be spent administering the licences to use the data.” Information Professional, Higher Education Institution.
• “Having to locate maps from different areas and of differing scales would be a nightmare! Simple with Digimap.” Lecturer, Higher Education Institution.

What would happen without Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection?

In response to the question “What alternative would you use if Historic Digimap was not available?”; 56% did not know, 9% said none and 35% gave an alternative.

The 35% of users who said they would use an alternative was made up of 11% who said they would use paper maps (dependent on library holdings); 9% who would use free online mapping services such as Google and Bing (which do not have much large scale detail or data to download); 6% who gave examples of free online services(which were not as broad in their coverage or as detailed); 4% who would use a Paid Service; 2% who would create the data themselves(adding to the length of time a project would take); and 3% who would Pay the Ordnance Survey Directly for the data (though this would not provide a mapping service, just the data).

User Comments

• “The availability of the extent of the mapping and its flexibility is not available elsewhere at an affordable price.” Lecturer, Further Education Institution.
• “I would have to get data from other sources, but usually don't have a budget, so having Digimap for free at the point of use is great.” Information Professional, Higher Education Institution.
• “The level of detail provided is often better than can be obtained through other providers. Being able to move from one map to another and change the scale quickly is a definite advantage over paper OS maps.” Researcher, Higher Education Institution.
• “Google Map/Earth possibly although these are not as accurate and detailed” Postgraduate, Higher Education Institution.
• “The OS OpenData website, but this is much less easy to use and the range of data is far smaller - in particular the lack of MasterMap etc. is a major limitation.” Lecturer, Higher Education Institution.