<div dir="ltr">Mike,<div><br></div><div style>What you describe is technically feasible, would potentially be fine with the OpenStreetMap community, and would in my view be a really excellent initiative. There are probably three issues:</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>1. The load you'd put on servers. If this is an application used by relatively few local government officers, and you have few resources, you might get away with just using the OpenStreetMap servers including the tile server for the maps, and something like the Overpass API to overlay custom sets of features (see <a href="http://overpass-api.de">http://overpass-api.de</a> and <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu">http://overpass-turbo.eu</a>). However, you might want to consider setting up your own server and keeping an up-to-date copy of the OpenStreetMap data so you can guarantee uptime and avoid overloading community systems.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>2. Training local government officers to enter data into OpenStreetMap. Will this just be GIS officers, or others? It wouldn't be great if large numbers of inexperienced people came along and started making lots of edits without understanding some fundamentals about OpenStreetMap, even with a simple dialogue. It could overwhelm local users who are often quite happy to offer some advice. Worse, it could lead to lots of copyrighted material flooding in. Then again your dialogue, and the volume, might make this a non-issue.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>3. Getting existing data into OpenStreetMap. I imagine a large proportion of the assets you are talking about aren't in OpenStreetMap yet, so they'd need to be added. We really don't like people bulk-importing data, it causes all sorts of problems. We are also incredibly cautious about licensing, and usually copying over local authority data brings with it complicated issues about Ordnance Survey rights. So you'd need to get clear legal advice on that to satisy us, and then carefully work with the community to bring in the data you have, merging it with existing OpenStreetMap data. See this page for some further info: <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import_guidelines">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import_guidelines</a></div>
<div><div><br></div><div style>Others may be able to offer more hands-on help. There are companies you could speak to, like:</div><div style><a href="http://www.opencagedata.com/">http://www.opencagedata.com/</a></div><div style>
<a href="http://www.geofabrik.de/">http://www.geofabrik.de/</a><br></div><div style><a href="http://www.itoworld.com/">http://www.itoworld.com/</a> (for transport-related work)</div></div><div style><br></div><div style>There are also others on this list with much more technical talent who could advise, and some councils already using OSM extensively, such as James Rutter at Surrey Heath council (@Chobhamonian on twitter).</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>Regards,</div><div style>Tom</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 6 February 2014 14:13, Mike Thacker <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mike.thacker@esd.org.uk" target="_blank">mike.thacker@esd.org.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style>Hello</span></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px">
<span style><br></span></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style>I am working with tools used by a large number of UK councils, rather than us maintain separate data on local government assets (libraries, public toilets, contact centres, etc), we should like to hook in to <span>Open</span> <span>Street</span> <span>Map</span> to use its data and help maintain it.</span></div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style><br></span></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style>So I'd like to do two things:</span></div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><ol><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style>Overlay on the <span>Open</span> <span>Street</span> Maps we already use (see the rather small <a href="http://reports.esd.org.uk/Reports/14" target="_blank">example within this report</a> we generate) assets of types selected by users. We can either do this by switching on the relevant OSM layers or by downloading the data and overlaying it on a <span>map</span>. Note that maps are usually for a single local or fire authority.</span></li>
<li style="margin-left:15px"><span style>Provide an interface whereby local authority officers can update existing assets and add new ones to directly to <span>Open</span> <span>Street</span> <span>Map</span> via a simple dialogue that we provide. We can introduce some validation on who does this. </span></li>
</ol><div><span style>I'd like to explore the feasibility of doing 1 and 2 above and whether we are safe doing 2 without any suggestion that we might impair the quality of OSM data.</span></div>
</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style><br></span></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style>I'd really appreciate any feedback by email or ideas as to whom I should contact and how.</span></div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style><br></span></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px"><span style>Thanks in advance</span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px">Mike</div></font></span></div>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><a href="http://tom.acrewoods.net">http://tom.acrewoods.net</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/tom_chance">http://twitter.com/tom_chance</a>
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