unlocking the geospatial potential of survey data

UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA

Tom Ensom & Veerle Van den Eynden

wwww.data-archive.ac.uk

Archived survey data presents a vast wealth of material with potential for

secondary use in GIS


UK DATA ARCHIVE

• Over 5,000 datasets

• Popular survey data series include:

Quarterly Labour Force Survey

British Household Panel Survey / Understanding Society

British Crime Survey


We set out to explore the availability and usability of geo-identifiers in the UK Data

Archive collection

These identifiers come in the form of ‘spatial units’ e.g. Ward and Constituency


• The availability of geo-referenced data is ever increasing

• The usability of geo-referenced data ‘out-of-the-box’ is still generally poor

Reflective of and contributing too a divide between:

• GIS experts – idiosyncratic methodologies• Untrained with interest – steep learning

curve


1. SELECTION

2. QUALITY

3. METADATA

Three key features of ‘ready-to-link’ survey data for GIS

1. SELECTION

Include geographical identifiers which:

• Can be readily transformed

• Are of sufficient resolution to allow for fine-grained analysis

• Are appropriate to the data subject


2. QUALITY

Include geographical identifiers which:

• Use standard names

• Are coded with a standard coding schemee.g. ONS’ GSS Coding and Naming


3. METADATA

Include geographical identifiers which are:

• Time-referencede.g. Government Office Region as defined in 2001 as opposed to 1998

• Well documented in their derivation


Those collecting data need to adjust their workflows to enable this

Those curating data need to adjust their workflows to enable this

What should data collectors be doing?

• Considering geographic identifiers BEFORE data collection!

• Considering standards• INSPIRE/GEMINI• GSS Coding and Naming

• Documenting the provenance of geographic identifiers


What will we be doing at the UK Data Archive?

• INSPIRE compliance(we have published a metadata mapping for DDI-INSPIRE-GEMINI)

• Improving spatial unit definitions through extensive data cleansing

Standardised Time referenced


What will we be doing at the UK Data Archive?

• Improving resource discovery tools / interface

User friendly Lessen time spent searching through text Consider semantics

• Feeding back to data depositors

Guidance on best practise


U·Geo Browser

A new web tool for resource discovery

• Revised and augmented variable metadata

• Information clarifying the quality of the geo-identifier

• Integrated spatial unit definitions

• Links to boundary files

Live beta at: geo.data-archive.ac.uk


U·Geo Browser

• A demo tool using a simple, pragmatic approach

• This tech will be integrated into a central Archive resource discovery tool, and catalogued data will be updated to reflect these refinements

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• A step in the right direction but we need formal semantics built on persistent vocabularies

• A drive needed to establish this



Tom Ensom

[email protected]

wwww.data-archive.ac.uk

@UKDataArchive

Thanks to:

• all those at the UK Data Archive

• to EDINA for their contributions as consultants

unlocking the geospatial potential of survey data

Technology