Geospatial data service developments at EDINA interoperability in the Information Environment

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Geo-spatial data service developments at EDINA
- interoperability in the Information
Environment Dr David Medyckyj-Scott Manager,
EDINA Research and Geo-data services
JISC/NSF All Projects Meeting 2002 - Edinburgh
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Roadmap

• setting the context
• EDINA and the JISC 5/99 programme
• geo-X-walk - a gazetteer server
• Go-Geo! - a geo-data portal
• e-MapScholar - customisable, interactive learning
  materials
• the importance of interoperability
• conclusions

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Setting the context
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EDINA

• part of the Data Library, University of Edinburgh
• designated a JISC National Datacentre in 1995
• EDINA's mission...
• to enhance the productivity of research,
  learning and teaching in UK higher and further
  education
• provides key information resources, as part of
  the JISCs Information Environment
• geo-spatial data and geo-referenced information
  an increasingly important part of EDINAs
  activities
• two main geo-spatial services EDINA Digimap
  UKBORDERS
• undertake RD ? service
• strategic move toward interoperability

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Lite
Downloader
Carto (applet)
Gazetteer
Data search and export clients
Mapping clients
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Widening our activities - the JISC 5/99 Programme
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The JISC Information Environment is

• a national digital library... for higher and
  further education
• a managed collection of resources
• a distributed resource supporting learning and
  research in the UK
• heterogeneous bibliographic, images, data,
  video, geo-spatial, etc.
• an information environment that enables people to
  discover, access and use a wide variety of
  quality assured resources
• simple underlying functional model of the
  Information Environment - discover, access, use,
  publish
• JISC interested in applying this model to
  geographic information
• also desire to look for ways to enable geographic
  searching of the Information Environment

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JISC Information Environment
Content providers
Shared services
Authentication
Authorisation
Broker/Aggregator
Collectn Desc
Portal
Portal
Portal
Go-Geo! Portal
Service Desc
Resolver
Instn Profile
End-user
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Geo-spatial data data that have some form of
spatial or geo-graphic reference that enables
them to be located in two- or three-dimensional
space
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geo-X-walk - a gazetteer service
Digital Gazetteer - An electronic list of
geographic features together with their
associated spatial location Digital Gazetteer
Service - A network-addressable middle-ware
server supporting geographic referencing and
searching aim develop a demonstrator gazetteer
service suitable for extension to full service a
shared terminology service within the JISC
IE phase II demonstrator project - commenced June
2002 builds on the ideas of the Alexandria
Digital Library Project
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Geo-parsing indexing
The geo-X-walk Server
Searching
Reference use
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Reference Use - Example queries
Where is Ormskirk?
What is the county town of Shropshire?
What is at grid ref. NT 258 728?
List me all places ending with chester
What parishes fall within the Lake District
National Park?
On what river is Liverpool situated?
Which Roman roads pass through Leicestershire?
By what alternative names has York been known?
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Assist information services with searching

• geographic searching is an important and powerful
  information retrieval facility
• but users think about space in different ways
• this means information services would have to
  support a full range of geographic search options
• pointless for a service to try and index
  information on them all
• more efficient to map a user view to native
  spatial coding scheme
• BUT want to avoid services having to hold
  multiple geographies to perform mapping
• THEREFORE need a translation mechanism
• machine to machine interaction (m2m)

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Geo-parsing and indexing

• increasing demand from data providers, archives,
  libraries, and museums to support geographic
  searching
• large number of information resources NOT
  geographically indexed
• assist in the geo-referencing of information
  objects
• parse documents, metadata records etc. to
  identify geographic names, features and other
  geographies
• semi automatic indexing
• lets look at some examples.. (1) (2)
• ideally everyone should use standard spatial
  coding scheme
• why? Because wide variety of geographies exist
  which change over time!
• geographic coordinates preferred choice
• convert into geographic 'footprints

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Approach

• similar to the ADL approach (Linda Hill et al)
• structural model metadata model v. hierarchical
  thesaurus
• emphasis on implicit spatial relationships over
  explicitly stated relationships
• more than the traditional administrative
  hierarchy of current political entities
• represent objects by correct geometry
• feature type thesaurus important
• merge data from various sources
• comprehensive description but with small set of
  core elements
• temporal aspects of names, footprints,
  relationships,
• document source, spatial accuracy/scale of
  footprint
• technically challenging and many data related
  issues

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Go-Geo! - A Geo-data Portal
Go-Geo! will be a resource discovery tool that
tells users what spatial data exists for a given
area phase II demonstrator project - JISC funded,
commenced June 2002 aim develop a demonstrator
service suitable for extension to full
service lots of interest and a number of
challenges but also lots of similar services
e.g. AskGiraffe in the UK, FGDC Clearing house
in US so.
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What's different then?

• better than existing services -)
• promote greater awareness of data within HE
• increasing amounts of geo-spatial data being
  created
• help everyone make more (effective) use of these
  data particularly the wider GI community in the
  UK
• an access point to related resources
• obvious things (software, learning resources,
  training, etc.)
• BUT ALSO case studies, articles and projects,
  mail lists etc
• all tied together by location
• portal becomes a geographically oriented access
  point to the JISC Information Environment
• extend services to support access and data fusion

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NGDF Gateway
Geo-data Gateway
Other IEContent Providers
Go-Geo! Data Portal
Metadata or resource servers
Geo-data Network(proposed)
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Challenges

• yet another set of metadata standards
• creation of metadata
• how do we encourage documentation of data?
• how do we ensure metadata is comprehensive,
  current?
• discovery is all very well but what about access
• researchers and lecturers unable to handle
  requests for data
• require mechanism for 'publishing' their data
• spatial searching for related resources
• majority of services within JISC IE have no
  spatial indexing
• even if they were, the z39.50 software employed
  either
• doesn't support appropriate profiles e.g. GILS,
  GEO
• doesn't have functionality to undertake spatial
  searching

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Learning and Teaching - the e-MapScholar project
develop tools and learning and teaching materials
that enhance and support the use of geo-spatial
data in learning and teaching led by EDINA with a
number of associate partners deliverables a range
of Teaching Case Studies from a variety of
subject areas customisable and interactive
Learning Resources a proof-of-concept Virtual
Placement
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Bridging the Skills/Concepts Gap
Using data from Digimap in a GIS or drawing
package
Digimap - obtaining a map
Increasing user sophistication
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Framework for resource delivery

• three main areas identified as key conceptual
  interdisciplinary domains
• Working with digital map data
• Data integration
• Visualisation
• if we are going to provide something online, the
  materials must in someway be enhanced by this
  approach
• in the case of e-MapScholar, this is provided
  through
• the provision of interactive tools to students to
  illustrate key concepts and perform some basic
  analytical tasks
• the facility for lecturers to customise materials
  through provision of discipline and place
  specific examples

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Example page from a learning unit
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Example tools
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Components of a Learning Resource
A learning resource contains
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Content Management System
Interface of CMS showing how tutors can select
units to create a new resource, and edit metadata
associated with that resource
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Interoperability- tying it all together
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The need for interoperability

• EDINA increasingly needs to share spatial data
  between main services and services being
  developed in projects
• also being approached by other JISC services
  wanting to use OS maps and data in their services
• ditto external organisations e.g. NOF projects
• EDINA looking to interoperate with OS GB to
  reduce data storage and management costs
• gazetteer designed with interoperability in mind
  from start
• an infrastructural service that will be used by
  other service providers
• Q. How to go about this?
• need to use agreed standards with likelihood of
  wide adoption

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OGC and interoperability

• Open GIS Consortium (OGC), a private sector
  initiative, formed in 1994
• aim is to develop software specifications to
  advance geo-processing interoperability across
  the GIS industry
• employing practical testbeds and a consensus
  specification development process to arrive at
  open specifications for standard interfaces and
  protocols
• defined web service implementation specifications
  for
• Map Services Gazetteer Services
• Feature Services Geo-parser Services
• Coverage services Catalog Services
• over last few months, EDINA has begun
  implementing some of the specifications

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OGC-based interoperability at work
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An interoperable infrastructure
Infrastructural Services
Gazetteer Server
Geo-parser Server
Services
Clients
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Example application
JISC IE
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Conclusions

• EDINA building on experience of Digimap and
  UKBORDERS
• interoperability critical for multiple reasons
  e.g.
• efficiency and costs gains
• centralised data and expertise for a particularly
  data type but distributed use
• distributed services but data fusion
• standards based approach providing the means
• increasingly confident that we can build a
  geo-spatial service infrastructure
• provision of a geography oriented entry point to
  IE possible
• number of outstanding questions...
• will JISC support and fund it?
• will other services use it?
• will data providers allow it?

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Contacts

• Dr David Medyckyj-Scott
• Manager, Research and Geo-Data Services
• Email d.j.medyckyj-scott_at_ed.ac.uk
• EDINA web site http//edina.ac.uk
• Tel. [phone]
• Fax [phone]