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Raising Awareness

"The IWMW event provides an opportunity for those involved in the provision of institutional Web services to hear about institutional case studies, national initiatives and emerging technologies and to actively participate in a number of parallel sessions."

IWMW 2010 is the fourteenth workshop. This year's theme is 'The Web in Turbulent Times'.
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Institutional Web Management Workshop 2010

Parallel Session A3: Location Based Services Without the Cocoa

Title:
A3: Location Based Services Without the Cocoa
Session Tag:
#A3
Time:
Monday 12th July 2010 16:00-17:30
Facilitators:
Ben Butchart and Murray King, EDINA.
Abstract:
The increasing popularity of (smart phone) mobile devices with location sensors such as GPS, compasses and accelerometers has generated an explosion of new location based services ranging from simple navigational maps to augmented reality. Many of the new devices incorporate touch screen inputs heralding new forms of user interaction based on touch gestures. Many web managers will see great potential for enhancing the value of existing content through location aware services, making the content more relevant to the user and bringing together otherwise unrelated pieces of information. New types of interaction afforded by touch screen interfaces will further open possibilities for making content more accessible in a mobile context.

A major barrier to institutions creating location based services is the fragmented technology base and lack of standards in the mobile application market. The arrival of new platforms and languages such as Android, Cocoa Touch and Objective C has complicated an already diverse technology landscape. It is hard for institutions to obtain the necessary skills to support such a heterogeneous range of platforms, especially when budgets are under increasing pressure. In this workshop we will examine the approach to implementing location based services using more familiar web browser technologies such as HTML5 and AJAX, based on our experience evaluating how EDINA services could be brought to mobile devices as part of the JISC funded geo mobile scoping study. We will explore both the advantages and limitations of delivering applications through mobile browsers rather than native app stores. We will give an overview of implementing a native location app using Cocoa (not as hard as you might think) and show the advantages of "going native". Then we will explain techniques for building rich user interfaces for mobile web browsers using HTML5 technologies such as the W3C geolocation API, Local Storage and Canvas.

Contact Details

Ben Butchart
EDINA
Causewayside House
160 Causewayside
Edinburgh
UK
EH9 1PR
 Phone: +44 (0) 131 651 1227
Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 3308
Email:
Murray King
EDINA
Causewayside House
160 Causewayside
Edinburgh
UK
EH9 1PR
 Phone: +44 (0) 131 650 2912
Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 3308
Email:

Biographies

Photo of Ben ButchartBen Butchart is a senior software engineer with 12 years experience of web and distributed application development in both commercial and academic (research) environments. For the last 2 years Ben has worked for EDINA, where he heads up a team of 15 software engineers delivering geo spatial services for the HE/FE community. Recently, Ben lead the JISC 'Digimap mobile scoping' project, evaluating current trends and technologies relevant to delivering location based services with the Digimap platform.

Murray King is a is an experienced Java and C# developer with 15 years experience in object orientated design and development. He has programmed for a wide variety of business domains (scientific, engineering, retail, e-commerce, banking, healthcare) for both blue chip and small company clients. Murray was principal developer for the JISC 'Digimap mobile scoping' project and has previous experience developing location based mobile applications for the commercial market.

Materials

Slides
[HTML format] - [MS PowerPoint format]