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

Roadmap

• setting the context • EDINA and the JISC 5/99 programme

geo-X-walk - a gazetteer serverGo-Geo! - a geo-data portale-MapScholar - customisable, interactive learning materials

• the importance of interoperability• conclusions

Setting the context

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 JISC’s Information Environment

• geo-spatial data and geo-referenced information an increasingly important part of EDINA’s activities

• two main geo-spatial services: EDINA Digimap & UKBORDERS

• undertake R&D service• strategic move toward interoperability

Mapping clients Data search and export clients

Carto (applet)

‘Lite’

Downloader

Gazetteer

Widening our activities - the JISC 5/99 Programme

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

JISC Information Environment

Portal

Content providers

End-user

Portal

Broker/Aggregator

Authentication

Authorisation

Collect’n Desc

Service Desc

Resolver

Inst’n Profile

Shared services

Portal

Provision layer

Fusion layer

Presentationlayer

geo-X-walk

Go-Geo! Portal

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”

Statistical Account of Scotland

NUMBER XIII.

PARISH OF CULLEN.

(COUNTY OF BANFF, SYNOD OF ABERDEEN, PRESBYTERY OF FORDYCE.)

By the Rev. Mr. ROBERT GRANT.

Royalty, Extent, Climate, etc.

CULLEN, as appears from old charters, was originallycalled Inverculan, because it stands upon the bank ofthe Burn of Cullen, which, at the N. end of the town, fallsinto the sea: but now it is known by the name of Cullen on-ly. Cullen is a royal burgh, formerly a constabulary, ofwhich the Earl of Findlater was hereditary constable. Theset, as it is called, of the council, consists of 19, in which num-ber are included the Earl of Findlater, hereditary preses, 3bailies, a treasurer, a dean-of-guild, and 13 counsellors. Theparish extends from the sea fouthward, about 2 English milesin length.

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

Reference use

Information server

Information server

Searching

Geo-parsing &indexing

The geo-X-walkServer

Reference Use - Example queries

What is at grid ref. NT 258 728?

Where is Ormskirk?

What is the county town of Shropshire?

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?

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)

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’

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

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….

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

Other IEContent Providers

Go-Geo! Data Portal

Geo-data Network(proposed)

NGDF Gateway

Geo-data Gateway

Metadata or resource servers

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, GEOdoesn't have functionality to undertake spatial searching

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

deliverablesa range of Teaching Case Studies from a variety

of subject areascustomisable and interactive Learning Resources

a proof-of-concept Virtual Placement

Digimap - obtaining

a map

Bridging the Skills/Concepts Gap

Increasing user sophistication

Learning Materials

Tools

Learning/skills curve

Using data from Digimap

in a GIS or drawing package

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

Example page from a learning unit

Text

Interactive tool

Assessment

Example tools

Digitiser

Map Viewer

Components of a Learning Resource

A learning resource contains:

Learning objects include:

Plain text

Interactive tools

Web mapping

and are customisable in content and spatial extent where appropriate

Learning units contain:

Metadata

Learning objectives

Learning objects

Metadata

Learning objectives

Learning units

And can be made up of different combinations of units

Content Management System

Interface of CMS showing how tutors can select units to create a new resource, and edit metadata associated with that resource

Interoperability- tying it all together

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

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

OGC-based interoperability at work

An interoperable infrastructure

Web Map Server

Web Feature Server

Web Coverage

Server

Web Feature Server

Web Map Server

Gazetteer Server

geo-X-walk geo-X-walk

Geo-parser Server

e-MapScholar Service

Go-Geo! Portal

GE:Source Portal

Clients

Services

Infrastructural Services

Example application

Go-Geo! Portal

Gazetteer Server

geo-X-walk

geo-X-walk

Geo-parser Server

ContentProvider 1 Content

Provider 2Content

Provider 3

ContentProvider 4

customised requests

crosswalk spatialcomponent

geo-parse records (exp)

initiate search('Edinburgh')

return resultset

content spatiallyindexed

content not spatially indexed

content providerprofiles

JISC IE

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?

Contacts

Dr David Medyckyj-ScottManager, Research and Geo-Data Services Email: d.j.medyckyj-scott@ed.ac.uk

EDINA web site: http://edina.ac.ukTel.: +44 (0)131 650 3302Fax: +44 (0)131 650 3308