26 June 2003

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26 June 2003
A Community Specific SDI the Case of UK Academia
GI-days in Munster 26th June 2003 Chris
Higgins (Medyckyj-Scott, D. and Reid, J) GIS
Project Leader chris.higgins_at_ed.ac.uk http//edin
a.ac.uk/
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EDINA

• Part of the Data Library, University of Edinburgh
• Designated a national datacentre in 1995
• EDINA's mission...
• to enhance the productivity of research,
  learning and teaching in UK higher and further
  education
• Bibliographic and Geodata services
• Undertake RD ? service

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Definition of Spatial Data Infrastructure
SDI encompasses the policies, organisational
remits, data, technologies, standard delivery
mechanisms and financial and human resources
necessary to ensure that those working with
spatial data, whether at the global or local
scale, are not impeded in meeting their
objectives, (INSPIRE consultation paper,
2003) the relevant base collection of
technologies, policies and institutional
arrangements that facilitate the availability of
and access to spatial data, (GSDI cookbook 2001)
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Relationship between Information Communities (IC)
and CSSDI
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Unique characteristics of the academic sector

• Non-commercial
• Supporting the national interest
• Requirement for educational tools
• Large number datasets
• Requirements of teaching different from research

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Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

• Uniquely British institution?
• Funded by the UK HFE funding councils
• Supports teaching, learning, research and
  administration
• Provides strategic guidance to UK HFE on use of
  ICT
• Provides advice and opportunities

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JISC Information Environment

• A national digital library... for higher and
  further education
• A managed collection of resources
• A distributed resource supporting learning and
  research in the UK
• Enable people to discover, access and use a wide
  variety of quality assured resources
• Heterogeneous bibliographic, images, data,
  video, geo-spatial, etc.
• Simple underlying functional model of the
  Information Environment - discover, access, use,
  publish

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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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CHEST

• Combined Higher Education Software Team
• Focal point for supply of IT related products to
  UK HFE
• Software, data, information and training
  materials
• Not for profit
• Agreements between suppliers of IT products and
  CHEST

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JISC Funded National Data Centres

• MIMAS in the geo area specialises in raster
  data
• EDINA in the geo area specialises in vector
  data
• Geo-spatial data increasingly important part of
  EDINAs activities
• Strategic move toward interoperability
• Member of OGC
• Share between internal and external services
• Reduce costs
• Many implications for future

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Go-Geo! - A Geo-data Portal

• Go-Geo! A resource discovery tool that tells
  users what geo-spatial data exist for a given
  area
• Also related resources, eg, images, articles,
  projects
• JISC funded, joint project between EDINA and HDS
• Links with GIgateway and built upon Z39.50
  technologies
• Will migrate to be OGC Catalog service compliant

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Go-Geo! portal architecture
Other IEContent Providers
Geo-data Gateway
GIgateway network
Metadata or resource servers
Geo-data Network(proposed)
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UKBORDERS

• Web-accessible online access service for
  boundary data
• data can be generalised made available in
  many GIS formats
• Covers all main geographies in Britain
• Over 400,000 polygons another 250,000 for
  2001 census
• boundaries for all levels of census geography

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Current UKBorders datasets

• Census Geographies
• Administrative Geographies
• Electoral Geographies
• Postal Geographies
• Other Geographies
• Historical Geographies

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Digimap

• Access and use core datasets
• Internet mapping and data delivery service
• Subscription service but free at point of use
• Launched in January 2000
• Virtual map library
• Interoperability MoU with Ordnance Survey

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OS data available through Digimap
Code-Point with polygons
150,000 Colour Rasterand Gazetteer
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Mapping, data search and export clients
Lite
Downloader
Carto (applet)
Gazetteer
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Learning and Teaching - the e-MapScholar project

• Tools and 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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Components of an e-MapScholar Learning Resource
A learning resource contains
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geoXwalk - 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
• Infrastructural service, eg, used by Go-Geo!
• Represents objects by correct geometry
• Alexandria Digital Library query protocol

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Supporting reference use the where is? type of
question
Where is Aberdour?
What is the largest town in Cornwall?
What is at grid ref. NY 305 573 ?
List me all places ending with chester
What parishes fall within the Pembrokeshire
National Park?
On what river is Dundee situated?
Which Roman roads pass through Scotland?
By what alternative names has York been known?
research use to resolve variant names etc.
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Supporting service searching
Return me Photographs of towns along the River
Tweed
Places... Peebles Innerleithen Melrose Kelso Colds
tream Berwick upon Tweed
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Conclusion

• CSSDI accurately describes the situation in the
  real world
• CSSDI is a useful concept for strategic planning

Contact chris.higgins_at_ed.ac.uk
26 June 2003