By June 2000 it was supporting some 1500 users from 43 institutions. Users had viewed 74,000 on-screen maps and produced 4800 EPS files for high quality printing. Many other users simply printed a draft quality GIF image directly from the browser. Digimap Download has been very intensively used by a subset of specialist users wishing to process the map data in their own software. Around 10,000 tiles of map data have been downloaded in this way by around 150 users.
Many users navigate the service using the on-line help and tutorials.
The Digimap service represents a breakthrough in the use of Ordnance Survey data for UK Higher Education, with previously unheard of flexibility in the copyright agreement. The feeding of Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army Law Analysis of police recorded crime Mathematics Modelling rainfall with topographic variables Medicine Pollution monitoring for Public Health Services Pharmacology Study of health inequalities Planning Brown-field site regeneration studies Zoology Mapping of water vole distributions A simple mapping and downloading service is available to all institutions. It is clear that this is only the beginning. Six additional institutions plan to subscribe from the start of the Academic Year 2000-1 with a number of others coming along to our Training Courses to find out more. In institutions that are already signed up, we know that the level of activity will increase as arrangements to register users are refined and more teaching departments make use of the service.