AHeSSC e-Science Theme:
Space and Time
An Infrastructure View on Space and Place
James S Reid
EDINA
July 2007
Overview
“I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.”
Eddie Izzard
• Intro – EDINA and UK HFE
• GI(T) in the wider world
• SDIs, standards and all that jazz
• Confounders & Visions
• NB In passing, issues of Scale, Heterogenity and
Standards will be touched on.
EDINA and UK HFE
(contractual obligation piece)
EDINA National Data Centre
• a National Data Centre for Tertiary Education
since 1995
– based at the University of Edinburgh
• our mission...
to enhance the productivity of research,
learning and teaching in UK higher and
further education
• focus is on service but also undertake r&D
– turn projects  services
• substantial experience in handling geospatial
data
Research and geo-spatial data team
• largest team within EDINA
• highly experienced and skilled
team
– provides advice nationally and
internationally
– active in standards development
– active in GI community nationally and
internationally
• first online GI service,
UKBORDERS, launched in 1994
• demands of the services
offered means team has been
at leading edge of GI service
development in UK
• strategic move in 2000
towards interoperability
1999
Projects
Services
Today
Projects
Services
Digimap Service - Overview
• an online mapping and data delivery service
• originally built to provide access to OS (GB) maps and
data - a 'virtual map library’
• launched in January 2000
• content extended to include historic OS, GB geology and
UK and Ireland marine maps and data
• subscription service with some 35,000+ users
• nationally and internationally recognised
– AGI Technology Award in 2000
• first time UK academia has had access to this type and
quantity of high quality data
Facts and Figures
• in last 12 months
Downloaded Files
160000
140000
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
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• in 2004/5, users downloaded
over £15m worth of data
• Yet 80% of usage is mapping,
only 20% relates to data
downloads
180000
Number of Files Downloaded
– over 115,800 maps downloaded
for printing (68% Land-Line)
– over 543,5070 data files
downloaded (52% Land-Line)
200000
2000
2001
2003
2004
2005
2006
Printed Map Usage
Screen Map Usage
45000
1000000
40000
800000
35000
700000
30000
Number of Maps
900000
600000
500000
400000
300000
25000
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Number of Maps
2002
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Facts and Figures
• some 35,000+ current
registered users
• a total of 50,000+ users
over 7 years
• 64% of users are
undergraduates
– unexpected & highest of
all JISC services
• wide range of users
– less than 19% of users
are geographers
– Geographers take the
bulk of downloads at
46%
• used for a very wide
range of purposes
Staff
14%
Postgraduate
22%
Undergraduate
64%
Users
Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences
4%
Engineering and
Physical Sciences
33%
Particle Physics and
Astronomy
1%
Download
Requests
Engineering and
Physical Sciences
29%
Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences
3%
Art and Humanities
9%
Natural Environment
13%
Medical Sciences
1%
Geography
19%
Art and
Humanities
9%
Particle Physics and
Astronomy
1%
Geography
46%
Economic and Social
Science
17%
Information Services
4%
Natural
Environment
4%
Medical Sciences
1%
Economic and Social
Science
7%
Information
Services
1%
Example uses
Archaeology
Spatial analysis of prehistoric rock art in Northumberland
Architecture
3D modelling for flood prevention designs
Horticulture
Ability of particular tree species to reduce air pollution
Meteorology
Effects of orography in weather radar measurements
Planning
Sustainable integrated transport planning
Economics
Retail stock changes in deprived areas
Sociology
Changing spatial pattern of behavioural and mobility as children grow up
Zoology
Analysis of home ranges and foraging patterns of urban foxes
Computer Science
Research into graphics and visualisation
Engineering
Effect of construction programming on passenger flows
Health
Cancer incidence in relation to mobile phone masts
Environmental
Effects of disturbance from roads on nesting stone curlews
History
How did Cromwell feed his New Model Army
History
Distribution of 18th Century brewing and malting
Retail
Credit card customers’ shopping behaviour for major UK retailer
Geomorphology
Glacial landform mapping and reconstruction of UK ice sheets
Enough trumpet blowing…
onto…
GI(T) in the wider world
GI(T) in the wider world
• Formal ‘oldstyle’ world view vs Web 2.0 style ‘Neogeography’
– OGC & SDIs
– Google & Mashups
• Religious schisms
– E.g OSGEO
• Coexistence possible?
– KML and GML harmonisation?
• Pays your money and takes yer choice…
BUT
• We live in a different world…
• The academic substrate:
– The JISC IE
– RCUK
– Repositories; Scholarly communication
– Ivory towers or ivory silos?
– etc
VizNet
JISC
e-Framework
Programme
Community Engagement
& Support
JISC
e-infrastructure
Programme
ESRC
Data Strategy
datasets
NERC Data
Strategy
datasets
Community
Provided
Geospatials
Security Management
Tools
Security
Service
Registry
GRID Services and tools
Service
Registry
Knowledge Organisation
and Semantic Services
JISC
Support for
e-Research
DRAFT
JISC
Virtual
Environment
Programme
Semantically
co-ordinating resources
and services across
registries
Collaboration
across VO’S
GRADE
Digital
Repositories
Programme
JISC Digital
Preservation &
Records
Management
Test beds
Go-Geo!
Search
Harvest
Existing
Resources
JISC IE
Non direct
reference e.g.
place names
JISC Shared
Services
Programme
Preservation/
Archiving
Digitisation
Projects
Terminologies
HILT
JISC Services
Institutional
Repositories
GeoCrossWalk
DCC
‘Shared Services’
ATHENS
Chair of JISC GWG
“ The geographic information community
presents a microcosm of many of the
ambitions of the JISC and its partners.
What might be merely an aspiration in some
elements of JISC’s work – vocabulary
crosswalks between information
communities; interoperability beyond
resource discovery; self propelled standards
development – all of these have already
been achieved with geospatial resources.”
IS JISC a GIT?
• JISC see one of its key roles as enabling:
'the development and exploitation of a common infrastructure for finding,
accessing, delivering and using Internet based resources tailored to, and
seamless across, education and research communities'.
• It is recognised that interoperability is of fundamental
importance and that the JISC IE is a component of the national
and global networked environment
• New thrust towards SOAs in e-Framework :-
“The primary goal of the initiative is to produce an evolving and
sustainable, open standards based service oriented technical framework
to support the education and research communities.”
Meanwhile…
• Back in GIT world the above effectively = OGC mediated SDIs
SDIs for the reluctant – defn (Wikipedia)!!
“SDI may refer to:
• Spatial Data Infrastructure
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Scuba Diving International (Recreational scuba diving agency)
Serial Digital Interface
Single document interface
Strategic Defense Initiative (U.S. anti-missile project under Ronald Reagan
colloquially known as "Star Wars")
Subsurface drip irrigation (also sometimes referred to as SSDI)
S.D.I. (video game), a Cinemaware computer game and an arcade game
Automotive fuel injection variants:
–
–
–
–
Saab Direct Injection
Semi-direct injection
Solenoid direct injection
Standard diesel injection
Sarawak Development Institute
Serial Data Interface
Serial Debug Interface
Seoul Development Institute
Software Development Institute
State Disability Insurance (as paid in California, New York State, or New Jersey, in
USA)
Susila Dharma International Association, the social welfare "wing" of Subud
S.D.I. (band), a German speed metal band.
Solution Delivery Integration “
SDIs defined
From Wikipedia:
• A Spatial Data Infrastructure or SDI is a framework of spatial data,
metadata, users and tools that are interactively connected in order to
use spatial data in an efficient and flexible way. Another definition is
the technology, policies, standards, human resources, and related
activities necessary to acquire, process, distribute, use, maintain, and
preserve spatial data.
• Some of the main principles (contrary to a GIS) are that data and
metadata should not be managed centrally, but by the data originator
and/or owner, and that tools and services connect via computer
networks to the various sources. To achieve these objectives, good
coordination between all the actors is necessary and the definition of
standards is very important.
• Due to its nature (size, cost, number of actors) an SDI is usually
government-related. An example of an existing SDI is the National
Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in the United States. At the
European side, INSPIRE is a European Commission initiative to build a
European SDI beyond national boundaries.
SDIs and standards
• SDIs tend to favour the adoption of standards for purposes of
openess and interoperability
• In practice this equates to a heavy predominance of ISO and
OGC standards (of which there are many) e.g.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Specifications for Web Feature Service (WFS),
Geography Markup Language (GML),
Web Map Service (WMS),
Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD),
Catalogue Services (CS-Web),
Filter Encoding Specification (FE).
Other standards included are ISO 19115 Geographic
Information - Metadata, and ISO 19119 Geographic Information
– Services
• An SDI baseline
Relevance
• So whats all this to do with UK HFE and eScience
come to that?
• Well, we would argue that through the JISC GWG
and coordinated activities, we are building a de
facto UK academic SDI that will enable researchers
to locate, access and use vital geospatial (and
spatio-temporal)
– Go-geo; Digimap Collections; UKBORDERS;Landmap
• We are also looking at the GIS and GRID interplay
(brokering role with OGC/OGF)
– SEEGEO (SEcurE access to GEOspatial services)
– Geolinking IE with MIMAS et al
Confounders
• Scale e.g.
– Multiple providers
– Self helpers and the neogeographers
• Heterogeneity e.g.
– Variable IPR
– OGC / Grid / OASIS WS
• Standards e.g.
– Purists vs pragmatists
– Questions arising:
•
•
•
•
what sorts of services do we need?
how can they be funded and sustained?
how do we 'interoperate' with other (non-HE) service providers?
how do we deal with the (big) DRM issues (authentication,
authorization, IP, Copyright)?
Datasets
OS Data
(GML)
Boundaries
(GML)
Growth in use
and users
New uses
and user types
Changing
user needs
(& expectations)
Virtual
communities
Other academic
Services
providers
Users
Technology
SOA/Web
services
Open
standards
DRM
What types
of services?
Open Source
GRID
Satellite
Desktop
Plug-ins
GPS/’LBS’
Hydrographic
?
(MarineXML)
Sensor networks
P2P
Geology
(XMML)
InterOperating
With 3rd parties
Sustainability
????
(GML?)
Personal
Storage
Devices
Semantic web
Data
harmonisation
Users as
data generators
Virtual datasets
Spatial Data
Infrastructures
JISC
Policies/
Programmes
e-Science
PSI
Policy drivers
ESRC
Dataset
Strategy
Repositories
Google Earth
An Emerging Vision – 10 points of principle
• Geospatial technologies are of value to the whole community
• Geospatial technologies are enabling technologies
• All data services are to some extent geospatial data services
• Geospatial technologies should be communicated more effectively and need to
be better understood
• The academic community needs to engage with external agencies to get the
most out of its engagement with geospatial technology
• Geospatial data should be viewed in the context of a strategic national data
framework
• There is no single business model for geospatial data services
• The creation, editing and analysis of geospatial data is itself a primary research
activity
• The creation and refinement of tools to analyse geospatial data is also a
primary research activity
• The academic community should value and share the geospatial data and tools
that it creates.
Questions?