Steven RamageHead of Ordnance Survey International

Member of the OGC Global Advisory Council

The value of international geospatial standards

12 years of OS MasterMap® in GML!

Went live on 30 Nov 2001Flagship product

First industrial strength GML implementation

460 million features

Updated and supplied on a daily basis

Available in GML only

International standards development

ISO 19158: Geographic Information: Quality assurance of data supply - Ordnance Survey’s accreditation system is now an ISO standard.

Ordnance Survey working in collaboration with:

3D-enabled National Data Model

• Ordnance Survey International partnership for development of national 3D-enabled data model;

• Ordnance Survey International awarded contract to develop spatial data models for Kingdom of Bahrain following open tender process in March 2013;

• Five year strategic advisory services framework agreement signed in November 2013;

• Vendor and platform independent solutions, based on international standards.

Interoperability: information issues

Location data

Location data

Location data

Location data

Location data

Value of international geospatial standards

“We need to share maps on the Web, across devices or platforms.” “We don't have a common

language to speak about our geospatial data or our services.”

“We need to find and pull together data from our automated sensors.”

“We have security issues relating to geospatial data exchange.”

© 2012 Open Geospatial Consortium

”We need to deliver data to different systems.”

Breaking down barriers between: • Nations, languages and cultures

• Disciplines, professions and industries

• Industry, government, academia and the public

• Local, regional and national government

• Teams, departments, organisations

• Different technologies and vendor products

• Legacy systems and new components/solutions

Interoperability: information context

© 2012 Open Geospatial Consortium

• Technical documents that detail interfaces or encodings;• Software developers use these documents to build open

interfaces and encodings into their products and services;• These standards are the main "products" and have been

developed to address specific interoperability challenges;• Ideally, when standards are implemented in products or

online services by two different software engineers working independently, the resulting components plug and play, that is, they work together without further debugging.

Copyright © 2012 Open Geospatial Consortium

Interoperability: information access

Help policy and decision makers to address the following:

a) Is the activity for public benefit? Measure and record value or ROI

b) What is the business driver? Internal efficiency, customer satisfaction

c) Does a capability already exist? Enable reuse, avoid duplication

© 2012 Open Geospatial Consortium

Interoperability: information value

European INSPIRE Directive

European Space Agency

GeoConnections Canada

Global Earth Observation

System of Systems (GEOSS)

National legislation, e.g. India, Japan, Netherlands…

US FGDC, USGS

US NGA, US NOAA

UK Location Programme

UK Ministry of Defence

Copyright © 2012 Open Geospatial Consortium

Standards in policy

In the outcome document “The future we want” Governments and organisations urged to commit to disaster risk reduction to enhance the resilience of cities and communities to disasters.

Regarding geospatial standards we must consider mechanisms to assist Member States:• Create a baseline or mechanism for data sharing;• Adopt existing standards and implement them in

national legal and policy frameworks;• Include IHO, ISO, OGC and others.

 

UN-GGIM and open standards

Benefits of international standards

Drive activities that underpin emergency

response and humanitarian assistance;

Support evidence-based decision making

and policy development;

Share and provide access to accurate, current, high-

quality, authoritative data.

UN-GGIM inventory of issues

a) Developing a national, regional and global strategic framework for geospatial information;

b) Establishing institutional arrangements and legal and common frameworks;

c) Building capability and capacity, especially in developing countries;

d) Assuring the quality of geospatial information;

e) Promoting data sharing, accessibility and dissemination;

f) Embracing trends in information technology;

g) Promoting geospatial advocacy and awareness;

h) Working in partnership with civil society and the private sector;

i) Linking geospatial information to statistics.

International Organization forStandardization

TC 211

New York, 13-15 August 2012Second session of theUN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management

2/103Inventory of issues to be addressed by the UN-GGIM Committee of Experts

Concept proposed

(d) Suggestion by Technical Committee 211 (geomatics and geographic information) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO/TC211) to put forward, jointly with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), a paper related to standard-setting issues in the international community …

UN-GGIM and international standards

International Organization forStandardization

TC 211

UN-GGIM and international standards

Draft report submitted

Second High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management

Qatar National Convention Centre, Doha, Qatar, 4-6 February 2013

Full report

Third Session of UN-GGIM Committee of Experts

Cambridge, UK,24-27 July 2013

http://tinyurl.com/mmfxjh5

Existing standards and inventory of issues

• Key trends• Cloud computing• Linked data• Big data• Internet of Things• New data creation• Volunteered Geographic Information• Open standards• Open source• Legal and policy frameworks • Data standards and policy• Coordination and collaboration• Skills and training

http://ggim.un.org/docs/meetings/3rd%20UNCE/UN-GGIM-Future-trends.pdf

UN-GGIM Future trends

International Hydrographic Organization (IHO)

• Intergovernmental consultative and technical organization established in 1921

• To support safety of navigation and the protection of the marine environment

• One of the IHO objectives:To bring about the greatest possible uniformity in

nautical charts and documents (i.e. standardization)

www.iho.int

UN-GGIM and international standards: IHO

For disaster response lack of data has major impact: resolution and density of data for good tsunami inundation modelling far exceeds capabilities of existing data in

most coastal areas of world. 

Governments should establish holistic bathymetric data gathering programmes that serve all requirements concurrently - not just improvement of nautical charts.

“Regarding data interoperability and standardisation the principal issue in the maritime domain is lack of data.”

Image courtesy of NOAA

Robert Ward, President, International Hydrographic Organization (IHO)

AMLAML

MIOMIO

InlandENC

InlandENC

BathyENC

BathyENC

3D &Temporal

3D &Temporal

Web ServicesWeb Services

GriddedGridded

Nautical

Pubs

Nautical

Pubs

S-10xS-10x

Next Generation ENC

Next Generation ENC

S-101S-101

1913119135

19129

191171911119110

19139

19114

1910919126

1911519113 19107

IHO S-10x standards depend on several ISO19100 series standards

UN-GGIM and international standards: IHO

• World's largest developer of standards founded in 1946 Network of national standards institutes from 163 countries 19 500 standards published

• Recognized by the UN, particularly agencies involved in the harmonization of regulations and public policies, and that provide assistance and support to developing countries

• Technical Committees (TCs) Range from food safety to computers to healthcare ISO/TC 211, Geographic information/geomatics

www.iso.org www.isotc211.org

UN-GGIM and international standards: ISO

OrganizationContent (data)Access,

Technology EducationStandards

Components of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)

ISO/TC 211, OGC and IHO have been cooperating since 1994, mainly under the liaison mechanism of ISO.

UN-GGIM and international standards

.

ISO/TC 211 and OGC also benefit from a range of people working actively in both organizations and have a Joint Advisory Group (JAG).This includes representatives from Ordnance Survey.

• Industry consortium, circa 500 member organisations• 30+ geospatial standards, many also ISO standards • Goal is to define, document and test implementation

standards for use with geospatial content and services integration of geospatial content and services into

applications

www.opengeospatial.org

UN-GGIM and international standards: OGC

Mary McRae, OASIS

Standards are like parachutes: they work best when they're open.

WFS for data supply works

Kyle Dow, Senior Data Analyst, Corporate Data Team, CCC

Some issues Christchurch City holds

Authoritative Data, e.g…

WasteWater

Building Status

Construction partners manuallysubmit data in variety of formats

Time and money wasted on data loading and management

WFS has no capability to receive updates through interoperable web services

What was needed Transactional Interoperability between

recovery partners:

CERA, CCC, SCIRT

ESRI, Intergraph

OGC Standards (NZGO SDI Cookbook)

Practical, short-term solution (can’t wait)

Focus on issues with existing (OGC)standards interfaces, notably WFS-T

Immediate results that will accelerate recovery & reconstruction efforts

Solution: WFS-T Plugfest

Short Duration

Collaborative

Hands-on

Independent Facilitation & WFS-T Architect

“Just Make it Work”

Image: http://www.ispcs.org

Technology agnostic

* fictitious name to protect any commercial interests

Organisation Technologies

CCC Intergraph GeoMedia Pro

Intergraph GeoMedia WebMap

SCIRT ESRI ArcGIS Server

ESRI ArcGIS Desktop

Safe Software – FME

WFS ‘Pump script’

CERA Benoli Silverfish

ESRI GeoDatabase

WFS ‘Pump script’

InsureCorp* Pitney Bowes Software MapInfoProfessional

Before and After

OGC Business Value Committee (BVC)

business.value@lists.opengeospatial.org

The goals of the BVC are:1. Determine the value of using open standards;2. Assess the business reasons for developing standards;3. Provide an independent forum for discussion.

Costs

04/11/2023Prepared by Kexin Zhao & Mu Xia 201236

Scale: 1-7Both technology users and providers expect some

costs associated with OGC standards adoptionNo 1 Costs: employee trainingOverall, technology users expect higher costs than

technology providers

Implementation Costs

Integration Costs

Organizational Changes

Employee Training

Security/Privacy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4.1

4.42

4.6

4.86

4.26

Technology Users

Implementation Costs

Integration Costs

Organizational Changes

Employee Training

Uncertainty

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4.23

4.25

4.19

4.73

2.97

Technology Providers

Benefits

04/11/2023Prepared by Kexin Zhao & Mu Xia 201237

Scale: 1-7Both technology users and providers

expect significant benefits from adopting OGC standardsNo. 1 benefit: better customer service

(users) and customer satisfaction (providers)

Partner Coordination

Market Expansion

New Market

Bargain with IT Vendor

Reduce Operating Costs

Competitive Advantage

Customer Service

Productivity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5.35

4.96

4.64

4.71

5.28

4.93

5.46

5.01

Technology Users

Customer Satisfaction

Market Expansion

New Market

Reduce Operating Costs

Competitive Advantage

Productivity

Reduce Development Costs

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5.55

5.46

5.22

4.98

5.38

4.62

4.94

Technology Providers

• The Business Value Committee recommended that the OGC Technical Committee approve the Middle East/North Africa forum charter and requested that the OGC Planning Committee approve formation of this new proposed OGC Forum.

• The goal for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Regional Forum is to address OGC outreach and education needs of government, academic, research and industry organizations in the Middle East and North Africa.

• The MENA Forum charter is available here:https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=52791&version=1

Copyright © 2013 Open Geospatial Consortium

BVC motion: form a MENA Regional Forum

With thanks to the following contributors:Naji Sabt, Director General, General Directorate of Survey, Survey and Land Registration Bureau, Kingdom of Bahrain

Robert Ward, President, IHO

Olaf Ostensen, Chair, ISO/TC211

Mark Reichardt, President, OGC

Maurits van der Vlugt, Mercury Project Solutions, Australia

Richard Murcott, LINZ, New Zealand

Samer Atiya, ADSIC, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Contact details:Steven Ramage, Head of Ordnance Survey International

Member of the OGC Global Advisory Council and Chair of the OGC Business Value Committeesteven.ramage@ordnancesurvey.co.uk