social space for geospatial information

IST-Africa 2011 Conference Proceedings Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds) IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2011 ISBN: 978-1-905824-24-3

Social Space for Geospatial Information Karel CHARVAT1, Premysl VOHNOUT1, Stepan KAFKA2, Jachym CEPICKY2,

Tomáš MILDORF3, Karel JANECKA3, Tomas CHVATAL1

1Ceske Centrum pro vedu a Spolecnost, Radlicka 28, Praha, 150 00, Czech Republic Tel: +420 281 973501, Fax: +420 281 973501, Email: [email protected]

2Help service-remote sensing, Vnouckova 614, Benesov, 256 01, Czech Republic Tel: +420 317 724620, Fax: + 420 317 724620, Email:[email protected]

3Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Univerzitni 22, Plzen, 306 14, Czech Republic

Tel: +420 377 632691, Fax: + 420 377 632602, Email: [email protected]

Abstract: This paper introduces ideas to build a social space for sharing spatial data and spatial information. It includes also the experience with sharing of spatial data and spatial information. The objective of 4th way to SDI is not to build a single node or access point for accessing or collecting spatial information but to build a network of nodes, where every node could be an access point for spatial information. The objective of 4th way to SDI should not be understood as an alternative of public initiatives including INSPIRE, GEOSS, GMESS or UNSDI but to give a chance to anybody to profit from formed Global SDI using standards coming from this initiatives and using interoperability rules defined mainly by Open Geospatial Consortium and W3C. The objective of 4th way to SDI is not to replace such useful initiatives as OpenStreetMap, but to make results of the initiatives more accessible for everybody. The objective of 4th way to SDI is not to remove such solution like Google Maps or Microsoft Live Maps, but give some alternative, where on one side people could share information in different environment including for example Google. The objective of 4th way to SDI is to support utilisation of Open Sources. Proprietary solutions are not excluded from the network. A key aspect is interoperability. Objective of 4th way to SDI is also to give a chance to share and use spatial information by people, who do not have necessary infrastructure.

Keywords: SDI, Social Networks, Communities, URM, GeoHosting

1. Introduction There can be identified four basic blocks for SDI building: institutional support, political support, accessibility and usability [6]. As depicted on the following figure, we see a gap in the SDI building. This article should stress out the importance of user involvement in SDI building representing the gap.

What are the methods to build Spatial Data Infrastructure (furthermore referred to as SDI)? What is the future of SDI building in development countries? How developing countries could profit from new technologies? How experiences from Europe could be implemented in Africa? And what we can do together? These are the main questions, which we would like to address and discuss. The most frequent ways how to build SDI are:

1. Building SDI by public administration in Europe is public based SDI mainly supported by the INSPIRE initiative (http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/). There are defined certain rules for data sharing and their life cycle. They include metadata,

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specifications for data sets and spatial data services; network services and technologies; agreements on sharing, access and use; and coordination and monitoring mechanisms, processes and procedures.

2. Commercial public portals – e.g. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft. They are used every day by users who are looking for some information. This data can't be often used for building of local or regional SDI due to licensing policy issues. The data provided are very often missing information necessary for building up SDI, e.g. metadata according to the international standard or metadata at alls.

3. The third alternatives are voluntary or online communities. As the example of OpenStreetMap (http://www.openstreetmap.org/) shows, nowadays, citizens have an interest in sharing their findings within a community. Therefore, the architecture should foresee collaboration possibilities for people who are not employed by environmental agencies. Data are eventually reported by the general public needs to be checked and validated before it may be published. Specific data models and formats might be a problem in this domain. The usage of these infrastructures are sometimes difficult for a non specialist.

2. Objectives Introduction chapter explained the three common approaches of SDI building. The concept of our approach is called 4th way to SDI building. The idea is to take advantage of standardisation efforts including INSPIRE and OGC (http://www.opengeospatial.org/) and combine thess efforts with both commercial initiatives and mainly with support of initiatives on voluntary basis. The goal is to bring all these possibilities closer to people in a form, which is easily accessible and understandable. The future solution has to support integration of spatial and non spatial information. A solution based mainly on Open Source software integrates spatial and non-spatial information, uses standards for communication, storage and interfaces and enables to communicate with various stakeholders through social network sites and other means. The solution is based on Geoportal4everybody (http://www.geoportal4everybody.eu/).


http://www.geoportal4everybody.eu/

3. Background One year ago, we used the terms 4th way to SDI and Geoportal4everybody for the first time. But this process started many years ago with the ideas of Geohosting and Uniform Resource Management (furthermore referred to as URM). The objective of Geohosting is to offer services supporting the creation of a spatial data sharing system with possibility to publish data for any user having access to Web. The system is based on open formats and is open for interaction with other SDI platforms. It could be used in education, but also could be a solution for researchers and small data providers including developing countries. The main objective of the URM is an easy description, discovery and validation of relevant information sources. The URM ensured that any user can easily discover, evaluate and use relevant information. A free text search engine (e.g. Google) can’t be used due to the fact that in many cases a user obtains thousands, if not millions, of irrelevant links. This happens because the free text enginesdo not fully recognise the context of the searched information. The context characterises any information, knowledge and observation. Context strongly influences the way how the information will be used. A possibility for solving the discovery problem within a context is to use metadata for standardised description of any information, knowledge, data sources, sensors, etc. In combination with standardised lists of terms (controlled vocabularies or thesaurus, standardised way of geometric location, gazetteers and controlled list of categories), it will increase efficiency of discovery of requested knowledge, information or data sources. Metadata are descriptive information about an object or a resource whether it is physical or electronic. While standardised metadata are relatively new, the underlying concepts behind metadata have been used for as long as collections of information have been organized. Library card catalogues represent a well-established type of metadata that has served as collection management and resource discovery tools for decades. The URM concept allows to access any information stored on one portal with other portals using the URM principles.

We would like to promote a shift from the pyramid paradigm, which is often mentioned

in the relation to building of Global SDI, to paradigm of spider net. Our concept is based on


a system of distributed data sources, where every provider can decide about accessibility of his data against concept of cloud computing, where one organisation is managing all information. The idea is not against outsourcing of data or services or using of external services, but to have control about data from the side of data holders. For implementation of this concept, we suggest the ideas of Geoportal4everybody. The principle of the URM allows to build a "spidernet" SISE (Shared Information Space for the Environment) infrastructure supporting interconnection of any two portals and effective exchange of information.

4. Methodology Geoportal4everybody combines both approaches. It offers possibility of publishing user derived data on a community portal, but also to share information using metadata catalogues with other portals. It also offers connection with public portal and reuse of information on public portal. We also offer easy integration of such information sources like OpenStreetMap. With the development of new desktop solutions, it is possible to connect all infrastructures from desktop solutions. As an example Janitor system can be mentioned. It integrates catalogue functionality into desktop system.

New functionality of Geoportal4everybody also includes aspects of social network site. A social network site consists of a finite set or sets of actors and the relation or relations defined on them. The presence of relational information is a critical and defining feature of a social network.

The focus of the Geoportal4everybody project is on social network sites (e.g Facebook, Twitter) as one of the main dissemination and communication tools.

The Geoportal4everybody is be an entry point for any news (new developments, problematic topics, progress in the project, etc.). News are posted by involved actors and automatically distributed to a number of selected communities – social network sites.

This approach allows involving other communities from one place without having to enter each community. Users of various social network sites can read entries and comment through their respective communities and don’t have to register elsewhere. Geoportal4everybody is in principle also social network offering sharing of information (spatial and non-spatial) among community. The principle of sharing of information among portals also offer a support for exchange of information among communities.

Feedback from these social network sites is retrieved using RSS channel and answered again from the central point.


Geoportal4everybody supports utilisation of information from other social network sites including SlideShare or YouTube.

Other functionality is combining text with interactive maps.

5. Technology Description The geoportal is composed of several components. These are further described in more detail. It should give an overview of the technology used and basic characteristic of each component.

5.1 SimpleCMS

SimpleCMS is a content management system (Furthermore referred to as CMS) focused on usability and simplicity for end users. The main advantage in comparison with other CMS systems is simple approach for solving complex tasks. SimpleCMS provides access to the following features and/or provides access to the following options:

• Define content and system of menu for home page • Publish on home page articles • Publish external links in menu on home page • Publish on home page predefined map composition from MapMan • Order information on home page • Remove information from home page • Publish RSS channels on home page

See the example of Simple CMS at http://www.naturnet.org

5.2 Geohosting

The Geohosting system is able to work both with data stored directly on the internal server and with information accessible via web services. Data are saved in geodatabase by default, but the system is able to work also with data in individual files of different formats. Data repositories are represented by the File Repository and the GeoDatabase. Individual SW system components are:

• DataMan • MapMan

DataMan is application for management of spatial data. It supports management of data in databases or files. It supports export and import of this data and also publishing and updating of related metadata. In database, it is possible to store both, vector and raster data, including their attributes. Also for file oriented storage, it supports both, vector and raster


data. From raster formats, it currently supports IFF/GeoTIFF, JPEG,GIF, PNG, BMP, ECW, from vector formats ESRI Shapefile, DGN, DWG, GML. The basic functionalities of Dataman are:

• Transfer the spatial file into file repository • Describe file by metadata (ISO19115} • Definition of structure in database • Transfer file from file system into database (currently only for shapefile) • Describe record by metadata (19115) The Map Project Manager (MapMan) is a software tool for users who want to publish

local data or to create new map projects and compositions from local data and external services. It supports publication of spatial composition from locally stored data (fields or database-stored in DataMan), with external WMS, WFS data services. It supports visualization in web browser using clients including HSLayers, GoogleMaps, DHTML client, Desktop viewer GoogleEarth, GIS Janitor or publish data as OGC WebMapService (WMS), OGC WebFeatureService (WFS). All published data are also connected with metadata stored in Micka. Mapman functions list

• General goals • Support for creation and publication of map compositions from own and

external data • Support for publication of map compositions in more coordinate systems • Support for combination of different types of layers in different coordinate

systems • Creation of project (map composition) • Project settings

• Name, Abstract, Author, Keywords • Extent (as coordinate or visual in map) • Coordinate system • Access permissions (for browsing and editing)

• Type of possible layers in project • Vector layer

• Files • SHP, GML, DGN, other formats supported by OGR library

• Databases • PostGIS database • MSSQL Geomedia database

• Services • WFS (WebFeatureService)

• Raster layer • Files

• TIF, JPG, GIF, PNG, otherformats supported by GDAL library

• Services • WMS (WebMapService)

• Methods of adding layers to the project • From existing WMS or WFS servers • From user data storage (files stored on server by users) • From connected databases • Find required layers (datasets) in embedded catalog client (CSW – Catalog

Service) • Layer’s symbology is defined by SLD (Styled Layer Descriptor) • Publication of project


• MapViewer (web application) – with relevant metadata • WMS – with relevant metadata • WFS – with relevant metadata • Google Map • Google Earth

• Using in external applications

5.3 HSLayers

HSLayers (Help Service + OpenLayers) combines capabilities of ExtJS and OpenLayers and several helping scripts to establish truly Web GIS applications. Development started in 2007. In 2009, after 2 years of development, it was released under conditions of GNU General Public License 3. HSLayers features are coming up from OpenLayers and therefore their characteristics are as follows:

• Portrayal of various types of data: • Raster: OGC WMS(-T), Image (PNG, JPEG, GIF), … • Vector: OGC WFS(-T), GML, GeoRSS, KML, GPX, GeoJSON, … • Data sources from commercial servers: Google Maps, Virtual Earth, Yahoo

Maps, … • The user interface (use control) adheres to current conventions in web map portals. • Information about queried objects in text bubbles.

HSLayers additional functions including dynamic adding of OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) services into map - clients for WMS and WFS, portrayal of independent data sources on the client side, saving of map composition according to WMC (Web Map Context) OGC specification on user computer for repeated future use or for sharing between users and others.

5.4 Catalogue Client

Catalogue client allows search through connected metadata catalogues by catalogue service OGC CSW. Data can be searched by text or by defined elements defined in standards (OGC CSW 2.0.2, AP ISO, INSPIRE). Basic elements are dataset and services. Basic elements can be extended by user demands but they will not be searchable on other catalogues. First version of catalogue used cascading of multiple services. This version support adding services independently on each other.

This application interacts with map viewer so it can be added map services into map by one click. Another interaction is with metadata extractor. Documents or web pages stored by extractor can be opened also by one click.

5.5 Metadata Editor MIcKA

MIcKA is a complex system for metadata management used for building Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) and geoportal solutions. It contains tools for editing and management of metadata for spatial information, web services and other sources (documents, web sites, etc.). It includes online metadata search engine, portrayal of spatial information and download of spatial data to local computer.

MIcKA is compatible with obligatory standards for European SDI building (INSPIRE) and ISO standards. Therefore it is ready to be connected with other nodes of prepared network of metadata catalogues (its compatibility with pilot European geoportal is continuously tested). A test version of MIcKA is accessible at http://www.bnhelp.cz/projects/metadata/branches/micka-2.0/index.php?l=eng


http://www.bnhelp.cz/projects/metadata/branches/micka-2.0/index.php?l=eng

6. Developments The described solution is continuously developed and single components are published as open source step by step. But on the other side we offer also commercial support and customisation for potential users. Solution is currently part of solution of Czech National INSPIRE portal, but also a lot of European portals like OneGeology (http://www.onegeology-europe.eu/), NaturNet Plus (http://www.naturnet.org/), Habitats (http://www.habitats.cz/), EnviroGrids (http://www.envirogrids.cz/) and Plan4all are based on this solution. For public usage there are portals Geoportal4everybody and UNSDI.CZ. The main principles of the solution are:

• Independent components • Composition according to user requirements • Based on SOA • Possibility to integrate with other resources • Maximum openness

• Open Source • Open Standards

• Extension to non-GIS community • Open Search • Administration of other (non-spatial) data sources

7. Recommendations To support these activities it is necessary to be more focused on activities like awareness, education, participation of different groups and preparedness of users. There are several pilot projects dealing with education in various fields and using of social network sites for getting feedback on SDI building. It was shown during the execution of these projects that it is possible to build an SDI using the feedback and voluntary contribution of users. The awareness and information support has to be provided on all levels with main focus on regional and local level and also in direction to private sector and different social networks, until now not accomplished by GEOSS (http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss.shtml), GMES (http://www.gmes.info/), INSPIRE and other initiatives. It is very important that all initiatives are focused not only on sharing data, but also services. Services should enable appropriate use of collected data and information.

8. Business Benefits The way to increase general participation of all group of stakeholders and users of vision of Single Information Space for Environment, currently supported mainly by the ICT Ensure project and in future by the HABITATS project. Taking into account previous facts, INSPIRE could be a good legislative and standardisation frame for real future European SDI and eventually in relation with GEOSS and UNSDI (www.ungiwg.org/unsdi.htm) initiatives could help to build worldwide SDI. But there is a need to combine current standardisation work with the following aspects: • To support more bottom up approach in building SDI, where local and regional

organisations will not only adopt regulations but they will more actively participate on forming of SDI.

• To support participation of public bodies but also private initiatives, communities and social network sites on building of SDI.

• To support not only sharing of information, but also their analysis, modelling and easy accessibility for different applications.


http://www.ungiwg.org/unsdi.htm

9. Conclusions The way of the presented solution is to increase general participation of all groups of stakeholders and users in SDI building. Current initiatives are usually based on top down approach. A feedback on SDI building seems to be essential for meeting the requirements of governmental bodies and users – drivers of the SDI. It was proven during the execution of the previously mentioned projects that it is feasible to build up such communication which will be performed in both directions (from users to SDI and vice versa). It is necessary to combine current standardisation work and to support bottom up approach in SDI building by involving public bodies and private initiatives, communities and social network sites. Further work has to be done in this field, especially in the analysis of the feedback from users and assessment of reliability of the user feedback.

The above mentioned technologies were developed within the frame of these projects: Plan4all - the solution was achieved with financial co-funding by the European

Commission within the eContentplus with registration number 318007. enviroGRIDS @ Black Sea Catchment - the solution was achieved with financial co-

funding by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme with registration number 226740 and name “Building Capacity for a Black Sea Catchment Observation and Assessment System supporting Sustainable Development”

BRISEIDE - the solution was achieved with financial co-funding by the European Commission within the Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme with registration number 250474 and name “BRIdging SErvices, Information and Data for Europe”

HABITATS - the solution was achieved with financial co-funding by the European Commission within the Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme with registration number 250455 and name “Social Validation of INSPIRE Annex III Data Structures in EU HABITATS”

The technologies are further disseminated throughout the following projects: NATURNETPLUS - the solution was achieved with financial co-funding by European

Commission within the Lifelong Learning Programme [CZ/09/LLP-LdV/TOI/134009] SDI-EDU - the solution was achieved with financial co-funding by the European

Commission within the Lifelong Learning Programme [CZ/09/LLP-LdV/TOI/134010] The technologies are fully operational in the following institutions: CENIA - Czech Environmental Information Agency, Prague, Czech Republic Red de difusión de la Investigación en Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas (REDISCJ),

Canaria Islands, Spain Zemgales plānošanas reģions, Latvia

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http://eurlex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:108:SOM:EN:HTML

http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.cfm/pageid/6