GoGeo

Launched in 2010, and with 12,500 dedicated users, mySoil is a free smartphone app from the British Geological Survey (BGS) and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) which allows users to learn about the soil beneath their feet using the app's soil properties map of Britain and GPS.

Starting next month, a new version will extend its coverage to soils in the European Union (EU).

mySoil is for anyone with an interest in the soil of Britain; including gardeners and vegetable growers, allotment owners, farmers and agricultural specialists, school and college students environmentalists and land-use planners.

View a map of the soil parent material, the underlying geological material in your local area, and retrieve descriptions about the soil depth, texture, pH and organic matter content, and explore vegetation habitat data across Britain.

More information about mySoil, and access to the app, is available on the BGS website.

Click the 'More information' button to learn more about the use of the mySoil app in the EU.

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The University of Cumbria are looking to employ a GIS Web-developer The role is based in Windermere, I can think of worse places to re-locate to.

The Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) in partnership with the University of Cumbria is offering an opportunity for a graduate or post graduate wanting to develop skills and experience by working on an innovative GIS web-development project.

The Freshwater Biological Association (FBA), a registered charity and company limited by guarantee, promotes the study and application of freshwater biology. Established in 1929, it is the country’s foremost provider of freshwater information through membership services, research support and information dissemination.

A key activity is managing digital environmental datasets for Defra, Environment Agency and NGOs, using a library archiving standard along with attention to long term viability and accessibility of open access data (including documents, images etc.).

The role will involve creating, implementing and exploiting a GIS-enabled, standards-compliant on-line recording tool for collating freshwater biological records for use by non-scientists. The post holder will also be required to investigate sustainable income streams involving the newly developed tool.

This is a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) appointment in which the candidate will be supported in their role by University academics while working full-time at Nurture Lakeland. The University of Cumbria will employ the post holder.

Essential: Candidates should have a BA or BSc (2:1 or above) or post graduate degree in the area of Computing/Business Studies with excellent web development skills. Good communication, networking and interpersonal skills are required as well as the ability to work on your own initiative and as part of a small team.

Contract: Full time for 12 Months.
Salary: £19,000-£21,000.
Closing Date: 22nd April 2013

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Spotted on SlashGeo, OpenJUMP have just released version 1.6.1.

The latest release adds a host of new functions including:

• adding support for GeoTIFF with transformation matrix georeferencing courtesy of Nicolas Ribot
  
• add Tools > Generate > Create Point Layer from Attribute Table
  
• add Tools > Edit Attributes > Join Table... to attach attributes from an one layer to another layer based on a unique ID field
  
• add Tools > Edit Attributes > Add 3D Geometry Attributes plugin
  
• ..... and many more.
  

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Eurographics have released their EuroGlobalMap as OpenData. EuroGlobalMap is a 1:1 million scale topographic dataset covering 45 countries and territories in the European region. EuroGlobalMap is perfect for use as background to many applications from planning, monitoring and network analysis to presenting environmental policies. The dataset contains six themes:

1. Administrative boundaries
   
2. The water network
   
3. Transport networks
   
4. Settlements
   
5. Elevation
   
6. Names locations.
   

• Whole of Europe
  
• Great Britain
  

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Organisation: GeoData Institute, University of Southampton
Location: Southampton
Course type: Short Course
Date: 2-3 May 2013 (Courses run every two months)
Cost: £350 (additional 10% discount with promotional code; see below)

This course outlines the principles and methods of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) using a leading Open Source GIS software package, Quantum GIS. You will learn valuable GIS professional skills through hands-on computer exercises and how to apply these techniques to your environmental data. It also introduces a range of useful and accessible data sources across these fields. In addition, you will gain experience of data capture, data handling, environmental and social data analysis and mapping techniques that can be applied across the multi-disciplinary environmental sector – from habitat, species, landscape, social environment analysis and mapping.

Course Structure:

The course comprises a series of presentations and computer-based practical exercise sessions using Quantum GIS software with example data sets taken from a variety of disciplines.

The course will cover:

• introduction to GIS and Open Source Quantum GIS – some important principles;
• quantum User Interface: finding your way round Quantum, formatting data, symbology and labelling and scales;
• data management: data and metadata for GIS, vector and raster data;
• using tables: fields and attributes, joining and relating tables;
• selections and queries: interactive selections, using Query Builder, location-based and attribute based selections;
• georeferencing: data and georeferencing data;
• creating and editing layers : creating new layers, editing point, line and polygon data and attributes;
• producing maps and digital outputs: map elements, templates and printing; and
• geoprocessing & other tools / extensions: introduction to more advanced functions.

This introductory course is intended for those who have little or no GIS knowledge. Accredited by the AGI for continuing professional development, this GIS course can improve your employability by adding what is becoming an increasingly demanded skill by employers in the environmental, social and conservation fields. The course is intended for individuals and organisations wishing to take advantage of FREE software developed by the Open Source community. Open-source software has recently been acknowledged by a UK government mandate, recommending its preferential use over proprietary or closed source alternatives.

10% discount on the course fee; with this promotional code: ENVJOB

To book this course or for further information about this and their other courses, please email: training at geodata.soton.ac.uk or click the link below.

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The gvSIG Association announces the publishing of the gvSIG 2.0 final version. The main novelty of this version is its new architecture. The way gvSIG manage the data sources has been redesigned with the objective of improving the reliability as well as the modularity, benefiting the users as well as the developers. Besides it permits an easier maintenance and evolution of the technology. Therefore it has been an investment in the future with the aim of not limiting the technological evolution and establish the bases for a quick evolution.

This new gvSIG Desktop version includes a series of new features:

• New installer that supports typical and custom installation.
  
• Add-ons manager that allows to install new extensions and customize gvSIG from the same application.
  
• Some changes in the interface of data management tools like:
  
• File import/export
  
• Table operations
  
• New layer
  
• Layer load improved
  
• WMTS (Web Map Tiled Service) support
  
• Raster data cache
  
• Unified geoprocessing interface
  
• Import symbols, making the creation of symbols libraries easy.
  
• Export symbols, that allows to share complete symbols libraries with other users easily.
  
• Scripting framework (languages: Jython, Groovy and Javascript).
  

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The call for papers for FOSS4G 2013 has now closed and we now need to decide which ones will get a slot in the programme. As this is a community event, run by the community for the community, it is the community that will decide what gets presented.

The voting system is the one which was used for FOSS4G 2011 and FOSS4G-NA, so you may already be familiar with it. It allows you to vote for as may presentations as you like, and presents the proposals in a personal random order – i.e. you will see a different order from that seen by anyone else – in order to eliminate any bias from the order in which the proposals appear.

Community voting will end on 22nd April, ahead of the Local Organising Committee meeting on 24th and 25th April which will decide the final shape of the programme.

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The Department of Geography at the University of Loughborough has secured 2 PhD studentships aligned with Loughborough University’s strategic research investment in ‘Water Resources’ and ‘Autonomous Vehicles’. Applications are now invited from exceptionally well qualified students who wish to embark on a full-time research degree programme commencing in Autumn Term 2013.

Both projects will utilise the Department’s autonomous Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). This is a GPS-controlled fixed wing surveying platform with integrated camera system, developed in association with colleagues in Aeronautical and Civil Engineering. Data processing will utilise the Department’s high-performance PC (equipped with dual Xeon E5 8-core processors, each with 64Gb memory).

They will also benefit from close collaboration with colleagues in the ‘Earth and Planetary Observation and Monitoring’ team at the British Geological Survey (including access to their rotary wing UAS).

• Project 1: Managing flood risks in an uncertain future
  
• Project 2: Geo-spatial mapping using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)
  

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While not explicitly mentioning "geo" in the title, this workshop may well be useful for geo-researchers. This event will introduce participants to the ideas and concepts of data mining. It will focus on two techniques – regression trees and neural networks. The focus of the day will be on the comparison of these methods to more standard statistical models for prediction and classification such as logistic regression.. The event will also cover the assessment of fit of data mining models, and the need to split datasets into training and validation subsets.

Where: Lancaster University Postgraduate Statistics Centre, Fylde College, Lancaster
When: 09/05/2013
Cost:

1. £30 - For UK registered postgraduate students
   
2. £60 - For staff at UK academic institutions, ESRC funded researchers and registered charity organisations
   
3. £220 - For all other participants
   

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Applications are welcomed from promising researchers and enthusiastic teachers in Human Geography. Whilst no field of the subject will be excluded, candidates should be able to demonstrate a proven expertise in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and quantitative methodologies. Candidates are expected to have completed a Ph.D. and to be able to demonstrate a strong commitment to the delivery of high-quality teaching and research in Geography. The post represents the continued development of Human Geography in the University to focus on social, cultural, political and environmental branches of the subject taught and researched in an interdisciplinary manner.

Salary: £32,267
Ref: AC13/18
Closing Date: 13th May 2013

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