Output Area Classification User Group - OAC » Academic

OAC on London Profiler

Daniel Lewis — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 11:00:47 +0000

Researchers in the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London have developed a website which maps a range of public sector data for London. The website is called London Profiler and can be accessed at http://www.londonprofiler.org.

Of interest to users of the Output Area Classification is the inclusion of both the SuperGroup and SubGroup data. Additionally, they have developed their own geodemographic classification for London known as LOAC or ‘London Output Area Classification’. A further feature is the ability to add your own data in KML format onto the map. An example has been formalised using the Nestoria property search website. The website is very intuitive with an interface similar to Google Maps.

London Profiler showing OAC SuperGroups

More information about the website can be found in the following paper:

Gibin, M., Singleton, A.D., Mateos, P., Longley, P.A. (2008) Collaborative Mapping of London Using Google Maps: The LondonProfiler. CASA Working Paper 132. London: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

OAC design and use from Daniel Vicker’s Thesis

Daniel Lewis — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 11:00:37 +0000

Daniel Vickers’ PhD thesis on OAC uses the classifications to explore a number of different areas, including:

• the residential zones of cities
• compare the eight core cities across the UK
• changing voting patterns in the 2001 and 2005 elections
• the Countryside Agency rural-urban classifications
• deprivation levels based on the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004
• assessing socio-economic differences against Welsh language speaking, as well as religion in Northern Ireland
• Migration levels
• Socio-economic differences across the English ‘North-South’

The thesis can be downloaded from [here]

ACORN and IMD in British Crime Survey Analysis

Daniel Lewis — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 11:00:22 +0000

Whilst this example does not actually use the OAC classification, the point is that it could. The use of a commercial classification, such as CACIs ACORN can easily be substituted for the free OAC geodemographic. Nevertheless, Ian Brunton-Smith (University of Surrey) shows how geodemographics can be used to summarise existing data in order to reveal new insight into how that data impacts differently upon different neighbourhood types. The British Crime Survey, as a government created information set, was an early adopter of geodemographic classification for profiling purposes. In this image, worry about certain types of crime are seen to be differently distributed across different ACORN classes:

The presentation given on this topic is available in either annotated or slide-only form.

[With Notes] or [Slides Only]

OAC and 2001 Census Interaction Data

Daniel Lewis — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 11:00:06 +0000

OAC can be used to analyse Census Interaction Data; data of flows of individuals in the UK between origins and destinations. These flows are either the residential migrations of individuals from one place of usual residence to another or of commuters making journeys from home to workplace. Such data has always been able to tell us specific demographic breakdowns of commuters and migrants, but OAC offers a new dimension of analysis based on the analysis of like-population groups and their patterns. Oliver Duke-Williams offered a presentation with some insight into such an analysis:

The presentation slides which feature this image can be downloaded [here]

OAC available on CASAs MapTube

Daniel Lewis — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 11:00:00 +0000

The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at UCL have developed a website for sharing maps called Maptube available at http://www.maptube.org/. The main principle of MapTube is that shared maps can be overlayed to compare data visually. This means that the OAC map available on the site can be compared to other data being shared on Maptube. Features include the ability to navigate the whole world, change the opacity of data layers and zoom and pan the map.

Maptube Website with OAC layer

OAC used for household resource usage

Daniel Lewis — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 11:00:00 +0000

This academic paper acts is a useful study of resource usage by OAC. Study areas for each OAC super-group are shown to illustrate household resource usage, through calculating the weight of commodities (from Family Expenditure Survey) purchased by households in an area. “Typical” areas, representative of neighbourhoods in England and Wales, are chosen using the UK National Output Area Classification (OAC) system. In the paper one neighbourhood area is chosen to illustrate the resource demands of each super-group.

The paper is available at the following link:

Druckman, A1, Sinclair, P. and Jackson, T. (2006). Household resource usage and its drivers: a highly socioeconomically disaggregated model. Available from [here]