Tuesday 21 April 2009

Local Information System Resource Pack from InstantAtlas

GeoWise has been compiling a set of freely available resources to support those with an interest in understanding and implementing a Local Information System or Data Observatory. Our experience comes from more than 30 implementations of InstantAtlas Server, our off-the-shelf solution for LIS and Data Observatories, across local government and NHS organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.

You may already have seen some of these resources but we thought it would be easier to access them through a comprehensive digest. The online videos below are now available in a more accessible format to make them easier to view.

The LIS Resource Pack should be of value to two audiences:

  1. Those in the early stage of their thinking about management of local intelligence, more evidence-driven processes, and partnership-based data exchange.
  2. Those who have set up some form of LIS but are looking to improve data management processes and better integrate with other corporate processes.

The Resource Pack includes direct links to all of our LIS related online seminars and LIS documents. The two most recent seminars include a comprehensive review of the Norfolk Data Observatory and an overview of the development and launch of BHLIS (Brighton & Hove Local Information Service) for the Brighton & Hove Strategic Partnership. The Resource Pack also includes links to relevant documents, reports and web sites.

For furthere details on LIS please vist http://www.instantatlas.com/lis

Monday 20 April 2009

InstantAtlas - Free Trial

You can order a free 30 day fully functional evaluation version of InstantAtlas desktop. Two options are supported - both are available in the UK and internationally. The evaluation version is currently only available in an English language version.

Option 1 | Complete Form Below and Download the Free Trial Online

Option 2 | Request CD Version of Free Trial by Post - CLICK HERE

Presenting Statistics On Web Sites

Develop best practice for presenting statistics on the Web | InstantAtlas Presentation

Friday 17 April 2009

InstantAtlas E-bulletin

In this posting we feature the C4EO Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services web site and their recently published Progress Maps, which aim to assist users to understand "what works": evidence that has been shown to improve outcomes for children and families.

The Spotlight is cast on international Socio-economic Development, we have selected three recent client examples from Europe, where InstantAtlas has been used to present and report on key economic indicators and trends.

We have updated the Local Information System Resource Pack (at www.instantatlas.com/lis) with some new documents, in particular a supplementary report to the generic LIS business case report from North East Lincolnshire. This provides additional business case material collated from customers and links to material that has been published since the North East Lincolnshire report was written.

I hope you find this posting of great interest.

David Carey

Marketing Manager

david.carey@geowise.co.uk

Featured Application

C4EO - Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services

The Progress Map is an interactive web-based tool. It aims to help professionals access and apply the "what works" evidence that C4EO has collected, which has been shown to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families

The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services (C4EO) has used InstantAtlas as a core component of the interactive, web-based tools it is developing to help professionals access and apply the 'what works' evidence collected by the Centre to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

Using InstantAtlas (with excellent technical support from Geowise) has allowed us to develop and launch complex, interactive tools in a very short period of time. Though it is still early days, feedback so far has been overwhelming positive.

Jez MacDonald | Web Development Manager | Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE)

The CEO4 Progress Map is available from http://www.c4eo.org.uk/Progress_Maps

Client Spotlight – Socio-economic Development

Observatory, Álava, Spain

The Observatorio Social de Álava was created as a tool for sharing information on the activities of social services in the historic territory.

View Report


Statistical Office of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

The new online maps for Schleswig-Holstein make it possible for different audiences to gain a quick overview of the structure and trends in each district.

View Report


Blackpool Council, United Kingdom

This Instant Atlas display was created to show viewers custom ranges rather than dividing the data into equal intervals or quantiles for the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2007 and its seven domains of deprivation. –

Read on

View Report

InstantAtlas Resource Packs

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)

InstantAtlas is now well-established in the United States and United Kingdom and used by state health departments, regional and local public health authorities. It is ideal for presenting data values and trends in a spatial context to internal and external audiences. e.g. demographic data, epidemiological statistics, health indicators.

InstantAtlas serves equally well as a tool for monitoring performance of health resources and presenting survey results. Departments of Health in ten US States are implementing this software.

We have included some recent BRFSS examples on our website some of which are live operational applications, others are demonstration samples to show the power and flexibility of InstantAtlas

For further details visit our BRFSS Examples

Crime Mapping – Amethyst Project

The Amethyst Project is part of the crime reduction partnership in Cornwall. The Cornwall Crime Explorer is aimed at a non-expert end-user audience across the local partnership and external citizens. It illustrates a number of good practice concepts including easily understandable categorical classes, use of recognised colour shading and extensive descriptive metadata notes.

The atlas is based on the Performance Analysis Template in stand-alone mode with statistics being published quarterly by crime analysts using Excel. It offers a cross-cutting view of a range of indicators, in this case crime types, with the flexibility to view trends in a pop-up line graph.

Read the New Amethyst Case Study

Business Benefits for LIS Development

We have updated the Local Information System Resource Pack (at www.instantatlas.com/lis) with some new documents, in particular a supplementary report to the generic LIS business case report from North East Lincolnshire.

N E Lincolnshire Data Observatory Report (PDF)

Seminars & Conferences

Where to see InstantAtlas

"Location, location, location - Whither Geographical Information"

14th May 2009 - Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, UK

This year's BURISA Conference is the ideal opportunity to catch up with progress and issues in geographical information, demystify the jargon and look ahead to future developments.

URISA's Second GIS in Public Health Conference

June 5-8, 2009 - Providence, Rhode Island, US

The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is hosting the second specialty conference to explore the many uses of GIS for public health access, processes, and decision-making. – Click here for Further details of the Conference


North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)

2009 Annual Conference - June 13-19, 2009 San Diego, California, US

This year's conference, "Charting the Course to a New World in Cancer Surveillance" will highlight new directions in cancer surveillance with current and future technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as innovations in bioinformatics and genetics as these impact the cancer data collection

InstantAtlas will be demonstrated at these conferences, if you wish to be given a demo at the event email us at marketing@geowise.co.uk



InstantAtlas E-Bulletin on GLA, Geo-demographics and Crime Mapping

In this posting we review worked carried out by the Greater London Authority (GLA) who recently published their annual London Borough Stat-Pack as interactive maps using InstantAtlas. We take a look at new implementations of InstantAtlas for analysing and mapping crime statistics with South Yorkshire Police and Thames Valley Police, who have both adopted InstantAtlas as an affordable public crime mapping solution.

With increasing interest in social marketing and geo-demographics we present some recent work done in partnership with the Norfolk Data Observatory on their Lifestyle profile reports based on the CACI Acorn data product.

Visit our online LIS Resource Pack to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. We have collected all current LIS resources and added two new webinars in December by Norfolk County Council and Brighton and Hove Council.

David Carey
Marketing Manager

david.carey@geowise.co.uk

Featured Applications

Greater London Authority

The Greater London Authority (GLA) recently took advantage of its relationship with SASPAC, the UK Census analysis software specialists, to publish their annual 'London Borough Stat-pack' report as interactive maps.

The Stat-pack is produced by Data Management & Analysis Group (DMAG) and provides a wide range of borough level data across different themes as a leaflet and accompanying CD.

Gareth Piggott of DMAG says "We found the software easy to use, and the fact that we were able to customise the template gave us the freedom to present it exactly how we wanted it. InstantAtlas met the requirements for the project exactly and we intend using it again for web-based projects this year."

For more information visit:

http://www.saspac.org/StatPack09/

UK Crime Mapping

South Yorkshire Police and Thames Valley Police have both adopted InstantAtlas as an affordable public crime mapping solution to make a range of area-based crime statistics available through their web site in a visual and interactive manner. This also meets their obligations defined by UK Central Government - the Home Office - to make performance-related data on recorded crime for specific crime types available through interactive, online maps for the first time.

In line with Home Office guidance, the statistics have been selected to make them as easy to understand as possible. The report layout has been designed to allow users to get a cross-cutting view on the status of recorded crime across key crime types for any area of interest.

The values have been classified into a standard set of categorical classes relating the level of crime in any one area with that in the police authority area as a whole. These classes are also graded using a widely recognised convention (for example A to E in the case of South Yorkshire).


In parallel with our work with Police Forces, GeoWise has been working closely with Amethyst (www.amethyst.gov.uk), the CDRP for Cornwall, to update their online crime reporting capability. Their new atlas - see http://www.amethyst.gov.uk/crime.htm - is aimed at a wide range of users including staff within the local partnership and also those coming to the site externally.

All these crime reports are based on the InstantAtlas Performance Analysis template with minor enhancements, for example to add a postcode search function.

There are a range of UK and international examples of crime related work available through the Public Safety theme of the showcase section of the InstantAtlas web site.

Geo-demographics and Customer Insight

As part of the LARIA event on Social Marketing & Segmentation (see below) we did some work with the Norfolk Data Observatory team to enhance their presentation of geo-demographics. This included some enhancements to their Lifestyle profile reports based on the CACI Acorn data product. These reports are available for all their geographies (see example for Norwich Childrens Service Cluster area).

We also created an interactive geo-demographic profile allowing users to explore multiple areas (see screenshot and live example) and rapidly understand the likely composition of the resident population. We then used this profile atlas to help create a simple map based report, which classifies of all wards into a custom set of 6 classes based on Acorn Categories.

Product News

NEW InstantAtlas 6


InstantAtlas 6 for Desktop and Server is due for imminent release. To give you a taste of what is to come we have provide a list of some of the new key features for both applications.

New Desktop 6 Features include (not confirmed):-

* Improved Performance: Will load faster and can handle more data

* Improved handling of decimal points

* User Controlled Layer transparency

* Ability to switch base layers within one atlas

* Support for custom class breaks

* Colour coded data table

* Improved chart labels

New Server 6 Features include (not confirmed):-

* Completely re-written in Microsoft .NET.

* Support for storing data in remote databases

* Complete Multi-language support

* New improved user interface

* Support for calculated ratios from existing indicators

* Improved profiles including display as PDF

* New Server Publisher module allowing streaming of vector data from ArcGIS Server


If you would like to be alerted of the new release dates please email me at marketing @geowise.co.uk and I will send you a notification.

www.instantatlas.com


InstantAtlas – Ebulletin News

In this posting we feature the recently released National Health Episode Statistics (HES) e-Atlas produced by the Association of Public health Observatories (APHO). HES data are widely used and this new resources should make the data more accessible.

We also present a slightly different use of InstantAtlas as a part of the new MapYourName web site. Visit www.mapyourname.com to see the distribution of your name.

Finally visit our new online LIS Resource Pack to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. We have collected all current LIS resources and added two new webinars in December by Norfolk County Council and Brighton and Hove Council.

I hope you find post of great interest.

David Carey
Marketing Manager

david.carey@geowise.co.uk


Featured Applications

National Health Episode Statistics & e-Atlas (APHO)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are record level patient data collected by the Department of Health from every NHS hospital in England and Wales. HES data provides a comprehensive picture of inpatient care that can support public health analysis, planning and resource allocation, benchmarking, clinical audit, monitoring and performance management and research.*

Presenting HES data using InstantAtlas makes the data more accessible. As Steve Morgan, Senior Public Health Analyst at SEPHO says: " "I've demonstrated the software to a number of senior public health specialists and received a great deal of positive feedback – complex data previously once displayed in tedious two dimensional spreadsheets and charts is now transformed in an exciting and more meaningful manner"

The new HES e-Atlas produced by SEPHO on behalf of APHO shows HES data between 2003/4 – 2006/07 in a single map template (by Local Authorities).

It is available at: National HES e-Atlas

*Source and for more information on HES data

Map Your Name

Whatever your name there will be a place in the world it is most common. That place may be a continent, sometimes a country but very often a very specific region or even city or town whose location can be marked on a map.

The purpose of http://www.mapyourname.com is to make it easy for people to learn where this location is.

For the 60,000 most common family names Mapyourname will show their spread not just at country level but right down to the level of individual regions. From these maps most of you should be able to pinpoint the ancestral heartland of your name, and your friends' and colleagues' names, the place where your distant blood relations live, the location of your genetic home.

You can also map the areas where the 26,000 personal names are most common.

Visit mapyourname today and see where your name orginates

Mapyourname.com | Powered by InstantAtlas

Product News

NEW - Local Information Systems (Resource Pack)

Throughout 2008 GeoWise has been producing resources to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. Our experience comes from more than 30 implementations of InstantAtlas Server, our off-the-shelf solution for LIS and data observatories, across local government and NHS organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.

Visit our Resource Pack for further details – www.instantatlas.com/lis

InstantAtlas Training Courses

'very well presented, small enough 'chunks' to take it in but large enough to get something from.....'

Maddy Knott

Public Health Information & Knowledge Manager Portsmouth City Teaching PCT

'I found the training excellent. I thought the training was very clear...'

Jim Hawkins

Deputy Public Health Information & Knowledge Manager

Portsmouth City tPCT

InstantAtlas Training Courses now available

GeoWise offers two InstantAtlas Desktop Training Programmes:-

InstantAtlas Desktop FOUNDATION Course

InstantAtlas Desktop ADVANCED Course NEW

InstantAtlas CLASSROOM Training Courses – NEW – contact Sales for Details

Learn how to: -

  • Publish InstantAtlas dynamic reports for different geographies
  • Add and refresh the indicator data
  • Apply personalised designs
  • Distribute the reports.
  • These courses are available either on site at your premises, at our Edinburgh Offices or via WebEx (an online presentation and training tool).

Contact InstantAtlas Sales for more details.

Template Demos (Flash)

Desktop

Server Demo

InstantAtlas Case Studies

NORFOLK DATA OBSERVATORY

Norfolk improves decisions with InstantAtlas neighbourhood data visualization

NDO uses the InstantAtlas platform to provide local intelligence through highly visual and interactive graphical reports, maps, atlases, comparisons and other analyses. >>

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Norfolk Data Observatory on IA Showcase

SHEFFIELD PCT

Sheffield PCT gets the message across with InstantAtlas

Looking for a solution to its need to communicate local health indicators more clearly, Sheffield PCT chose to review InstantAtlas, a software tool from GeoWise which enables the graphical presentation of geographic and statistical data so that regional and local patterns become easy to see and explore. >>

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Sheffield PCT on IA Showcase

DIABETES UK

Diabetes UK uses InstantAtlas to help it inform, promote and campaign

Using InstantAtlas interactive flash based reports, Diabetes UK can demonstrate easily and quite clearly that some regions are better at providing a service such as eye screening or education, than others.

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Diabetes UK on IA Showcase

Keywords - data visualization tools, data visualization software, disease mapping, health mapping, geomarketing, public health statistics, crime mapping, statistical analysis tools, public health observatory, community information systems, geodemographic analysis

Visit the InstantAtlas - Showcase or Client List to see examples of how InstantAtlas is used



Thursday 16 April 2009

InstantAtlas | Crime Map Examples on Flickr

If you would like to see examples of InstantAtlas for crime mapping you can view them now on flicker.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/instantatlas/