Why Geography Matters…

Stephen Russell & James Jervis

Innovation & Research – Midland Heart

Outline

• Putting the GI into GIS• Data Formats• Data Formats (2)• Data Standards• Interoperability• Geospatial Analysis – hotspots• Software packages………• ……

A bit of background

• Who is Midland Heart?• Who am I?

“..the possibilities of GIS are endless, and therein lives its strength and weakness..”

(Bibby and Chowdry, 2001)

• It’s about Geography – where things are…• GIS is just a tool…

Why GIS works for Midland Heart!

Jim

GIS in Midland Heart

• Sits in the research team – provides oversight of the organisation

• Desktop GIS, but an intranet GIS being developed

• A mixture of internal (asset) and ‘open’ data – from census data through to OS OpenData.

• Internal asset data is the key source of data

• Two broad customer types:1) Operational requests (Asset management focus)2) Strategic requests (Research focus)

Open Data – the challenge…

• Where to start?• What adds value?• What provides insight?

• Needs to be question led…

Open Data – the challenge (2)…

• Plenty of information in the open domain – but still relatively limited with regards to housing…

• NROSH?• Clear examples where data sharing across

Housing Associations would be of a collective benefit

• Reticence due to data protection – but some barriers are imagined…

• WMBUS – attempting to collectively address the issue of welfare reform..

Questions?