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 Leaderchris.higgins@ed.ac.uk

http://edina.ac.uk/

26 June 2003

26 June 2003

• 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 R&D service

EDINA

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“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)

Definition of Spatial Data Infrastructure

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IC1e.g. soil

scientists

IC2e.g.

ecologists

ICne.g.

architects

CSSDI1e.g.

academic sector

CSSDI2e.g.

governmental

CSSDIn

Relationship between Information Communities (IC) and CSSDI

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• Non-commercial

• Supporting the national interest

• Requirement for educational tools

• Large number datasets

• Requirements of teaching different from research

Unique characteristics of the academic sector

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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

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

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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 EDINA’s 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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Other IEContent Providers

Go-Geo! portal architecture

Geo-data Network(proposed)

GIgateway network

Geo-data Gateway

Metadata or resource servers

Local go-geodatabase

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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 censusboundaries 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

Boundary Type England Scotland Wales

Administrative Districts *Administrative Regions *Basic Command Units * *Census Counties * * *Census Districts * * *Census Enumeration Districts * * *Census Output Areas *Census Pseudo Sectors *Census Regions *Census Standard Regions *Census Wards * * *Civil Parishes * * *CORINE Landcover * * *Council Areas *Country Outline * * *District Health Authorities * *Electoral Districts *Electoral Wards * *European Constituencies * * *Forest/Non-Forest areas * * *Health Board Areas * * *National Nature Reserve *National Parks * *New Towns * *NUTS2 Regions * * *NUTS3 Regions * * *Parliamentary Constituencies * * *Police Force Areas * * *Post Code Areas *Post Code Districts *Post Code Sectors *Post Code Units *Regional Electoral Divisions *Regional Health Authorities *Sample of Anonymised Records* * *Special Sites of Scientific Interest *Synthetic Localities * * *Travel to Work Areas * * *Unitary Authorities * *Urban and Rural Areas * *Urban footprints * * *Urban/Rural areas * *

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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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Land-Line.Plus®

• 1:10,000 - 1:1,250

Land-FormPANORAMA™

• 1:50,000• contours and DTM

Strategi®• 1:250,000

OS data available through Digimap

Meridian™

• 1:50,000

1:50,000 Colour Rasterand Gazetteer

Code-Pointwith polygons

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Carto (applet)

‘Lite’

Downloader

Gazetteer

Mapping, data search and export clients

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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

Slide 19 of ##

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Components of an e-MapScholar 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

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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

What is at grid ref. NY 305 573 ?

Where is Aberdour?

What is the largest town in Cornwall?

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”

Place name - River TweedFeature Type: River

Relation: ‘near’Distance: 1/2 km

Target type: towns

Places...PeeblesInnerleithenMelroseKelsoColdstreamBerwick upon Tweed

Image finder server

(Images indexed on place names)

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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@ed.ac.uk