OR/14/073 Survey respondents
| Bell, P, Shelley, W, Smith, R S, and Tomas, R. 2014. Reusable tools for smartphone apps: innovative activities in the European geological sector. British Geological Survey, OR/14/073. |
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The survey was conducted online between April and July 2014, and targeted EuroGeoSurveys members. EuroGeoSurveys are a not-for-profit organisation representing 33 national and regional geological surveys across Europe, an overall workforce of several thousand experts. These organisations have a long tradition in collecting data, preparing information and conducting research focused on their national subsurface.
They are also the custodians of the geological data, have responsibilities for managing the information for long-term benefits and have a remit for its dissemination.
In addition to the survey, we also conducted a review of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store to get a wider feel for the range of apps available and to build up as complete a picture as possible of activities in this context.
Outside of the remit of this study are the many geology apps that are available from a wide variety of non-European geological survey organisations e.g. education establishments and commercial companies.
We received responses from 18 countries across Europe (Figure 1) and they were completed by a range of professionals on behalf of their organisation: around 61% were technologists (IT manager, developer or data/informatics), around 28% were geoscientists and the remaining responses from a strategist (6%) and another responsible for communication (6%) (Figure 2). This represents a 55% response rate from EuroGeoSurvey members covering many EU Member States. It gives a good representation of the sector and indications of the benefits of app development, as obtained from the survey.
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