International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission)
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Geoportal Usability Evaluation
Get PDFGeoTest is a project initiated by Future Position X (a GIS cluster organization in Gävle, Sweden), the National Land Survey of Sweden (NLS) and the University of Gävle. The project aims to test Swedish geodata, services and geoportals and make sure they comply with the INSPIRE the other specifications. GeoTest has developed a method for testing the usability of geoportals. The method is based on the ISO 9241-11 framework, which splits the usability evaluation into three sub-parts consisting the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. By providing feedbacks from users in an organized way, the usability test provides geoportal developers with tools to validate the functions and the layout and to find possible problematic parts to be able to make better applications to meet both the organization and the end users’ needs. As a pilot test, the Swedish national geoportal, Geodataportalen, was tested for the usability. It validated the suggested method for testing the usability of geoportals
Cross-Border Harmonisation of Spatial Base Data between Germany and the Czech Republic
Get PDFOfficial spatial base data, as provided by the national surveying agencies, offer a high-quality basis for cross-border activities such as spatial planning, infrastructure development, flood risk management and environmental protection. However, these data cover only the related national territory since their provision is a sovereign task. Furthermore, they often feature different geographic projections, data formats and data models, geometry (e.g. of the national boundary and trans-boundary objects), languages and semantic meanings of the content. Thus, the objective of the study presented here is to develop methods which will allow the surveying agencies to adapt their data to be seamlessly compatible along the national boundary (geometric homogenisation) and comparable in regard to content (semantic harmonisation). The interoperability of the cross-border data is meant to be achieved in an exemplarily manner by using the vector data of the German ATKIS Basis-DLM (Authoritative Topographic Cartographic Information System, Digital Basis Landscape Model) and the Czech ZABAGED data (Fundamental Base of Geographic Data/Základní báze geografických dat)
Increasing the Availability of Spatial Data held by Public Sector Bodies: Some Experiences and Guidelines from the OneGeology-Europe Project
Get PDFThis paper provides an overview of the OneGeology-Europe project’s work on the harmonisation of access and licensing policies of the national Geological Surveys in the European Union. After presenting the European legal framework for the availability of public sector spatial data, it sets out some of the main challenges for harmonising data policies and the activities that were undertaken in the OneGeology-Europe project to address these challenges. These activities include the creation of a Code of Practice and model licences
An Assessment of the Current State of Spatial Data Sharing in Rwanda
Get PDFoai::article/225Geographic information is becoming more important everyday at all levels of society. It has a central role in supporting economies, improving business effectiveness in the private sector, enabling more efficient decision making and increasing citizens’ involvement in governance. The need to share becomes apparent when individuals and organisations cannot produce all datasets they need. Identifying current data sharing arrangements is pivotal to understanding the kind of sharing mechanism required. An assessment of data sharing in Rwanda was made by surveying organisations producing and/or using spatial datasets in their daily activities. Key areas covered include organisational approaches used and inhibitions to spatial data sharing. The main spatial data producers were identified as they exert enormous influence on the data sharing process. Results reveal that the main datasets shared are administrative boundaries, topographic maps and orthophotos. Most spatial data are exchanged as printed maps, implying that the data management system is predominantly paper based. Furthermore, findings show that majority of data users in Rwanda are decision makers. Data producers and users perceive the absence of a national policy on data access and sharing as the main impediment to sharing in Rwanda. Consequently, sharing modalities are very informal, with friendship, goodwill and organisation’s propensity to share identified as major considerations influencing decision to share data. Based on survey findings, different data sharing policy options were proposed. This assessment of the state of data sharing in Rwanda helps to identify current arrangements of spatial data exchange
The Development and Interlinkage of a Drought Vocabulary in the EuroGEOSS Interoperable Catalogue Infrastructure
Get PDFMetadata catalogues are used for facilitating the discovery of data and web services in, e.g., growing collections of Earth observation resources. Two conditions need to be met in order to successfully retrieve resources in catalogues: the metadata describing resources have to be complete and accurate and the keywords used in searches semantically related to the keywords contained in the metadata descriptions. One method to increase the rate of successfully retrieved metadata in catalogues is the use of controlled vocabularies. Such vocabularies can be used for annotating metadata with appropriate keywords and then also presented to users of the catalogue for specifying search terms. In the process of preparing metadata for drought-related data and services within the EuroGEOSS project, the need of a drought-specific vocabulary arose. This paper presents this drought vocabulary, the methodology followed for its development, its integration in the EuroGEOSS drought infrastructure and discusses its usefulness for the drought thematic area. The usefulness of the vocabulary is hereby measured by an increased use of search terms coming from an appropriate vocabulary and by an increase in the successful retrieval of resources. In particular, metadata must be annotated with appropriate keywords from a controlled vocabulary, thesaurus or ontology suitable for that particular field
Web services for spatial data exchange, schema transformation and validation as a prototypical implementation for the LPIS Quality Assurance
Get PDFThis article presents an SDI-based approach to implement selected web services within the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) Quality Assurance framework, according to the Commission Regulation 1122/2009. The Test Bed uses OGC conforming web services allowing for: (1) agricultural data transformation from national data schemas to the common LPIS Core Model, (2) transferring, validating and storing spatial and non-spatial observations of the quality inspections. The OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) interface specification is used as a basis to allow for interoperable accessing the schema transformation and content validation functionalities of the realised services. The implemented solutions demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed concepts and fit in with current INSPIRE activities
Conceptualizing people in SDI literature: Implications for SDI research and development
Get PDFPeople have always played an important role in SDI research. SDI researchers discuss in their papers the role of people explicitly or refer to people implicitly and from different angles. For example, they view people as users of SDI, as evaluators, as learners of SDI, as champions driving development, among others. In this article, we conduct an interpretive analysis of 142 peer-reviewed articles on SDI research from 1999 to 2010 and classify these on the basis of how SDI researchers view people. We discuss the implications of each view on people for SDI research and development. Our classification of the literature reveals that our field does not yet engage deeply in the everyday work of people as practitioners: planners, policy makers, and administrators. Compared to other views, a view on people as practitioners focuses on the relations not only between people, technology and data, but also their relations to things like land and urban space. It also emphasizes historical contingencies. This makes the ‘people as practitioners’ view especially relevant for contexts where SDI is only recently emerging and necessitates a dialogue with other spatial disciplines like planning and geography. Drawing on literature outside of mainstream SDI we outline two future research directions for a ‘people as practitioners’ view
Schema Transformation for INSPIRE
Get PDFMany Legally Mandated Organisations (LMOs) and other data suppliers who are providing data within the INSPIRE themes will retain their own schemas for the data that they collect, manage and publish. For INSPIRE compliance however, they must also ensure that there is a Transformation Service available to transform the data to the appropriate INSPIRE schema. This service may be provided by the supplier; by the national government concerned; or by a third party. It may be an offline service with the INSPIRE compliant datasets then published on the web for the INSPIRE GeoPortal (and others) to access; or it may be available as a web service - preferably capable of being invoked automatically at the time that data is requested. This paper describes the State of the Art Analysis and the subsequent development of Technical Guidance for INSPIRE Transformation Network Services, as carried out by a consortium of RSW Geomatics, 1Spatial, and Rob Walker Consultancy for the EC Joint Research Centre. It will be of use to any organisation implementing a transformation from one schema to another and specifically to the GML schemas required by the INSPIRE Implementing Rules. This paper concludes that INSPIRE Schema Transformation Network Services are feasible with adherence to international standards, some already specified in INSPIRE regulations, together with the use of discreet standards based components that can be supplied by a variety of vendors. The Technical Guidance (TG) should help to move INSPIRE into the mainstream of current developments on the World Wide Web and spread the interoperability of geo-spatial data to a wider audience
Geospatial Standards for Web-enabled Environmental Models
Get PDFServing geographic information via standardized Web services has been widely accepted as a useful approach. Web-enabled environmental models simulating real-world phenomena are, however, rare. The models predict observations traditionally served by geospatial Web services compliant to well-defined standards. Using standardized Web services could support decoupling of models, comparison of similar models, and the automatic integration into existing geospatial workflows. Modeling experts face several open issues when migrating existing environmental computer models to the Web. The selection of the Web service interface depends on the input parameters required for the successful execution of the computer model. Losing control over the execution of the models, and consequently also the confidence in model results, can be addressed to a certain extent by using translucent and standardized workflow languages. Mechanisms and open problems for the implementation of geospatial Web service compositions are discussed. Two scenarios about oil spills and the exposure to air pollution illustrate the impact of unconfigured model parameters for standard-compliant spatial data clients
Enhancing Spatial Data Accessibility in Ghana: Prioritization of Influencing Factors Using AHP
Get PDFThe Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a general problem-solving method that is useful in making complex, multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder decisions based on variables that have or do not have exact numerical consequences. AHP was applied to structure a multi-criteria decision problem regarding access to spatial data in Ghana; and to determine the priorities of spatial data accessibility components and influencing factors. A three-level AHP structure was constructed to examine the spatial data access problem, with a main objective, four sub-objectives and five alternatives. Spatial data accessibility was decomposed into four components (discoverability, retrievability, usability and affordability) which were used as sub-objectives (criteria). More so, spatial data access is mediated by affective factors (institutional, technical, policy/legal, socio-cultural and economic) which were used as alternatives. Fifty individuals from twenty four organizations were interviewed and later engaged in focus-group discussion to generate weights (priorities) for the accessibility components and the alternatives. The results provide both qualitative and quantitative information to decision makers regarding the spatial data access problem and their priorities from the perspective of enhancing access to spatial data. Regarding accessibility components (objectives), discoverability and retrievability had the highest priorities while technical and institutional issues had the highest priorities with regard to the affective factors. Considering the overall impact on the main objective and in the face of limited resources, it is concluded that improvement in the technical and institutional environment with the view to improving discoverability and retrievability require the highest priority in order to enhance access to spatial data in Ghana