The Development of a Trans-national Academic SDI: Experiences, Realisations and Perspectives

M. Barea, Dirección General de Carreteras, Andalusia, Spain

P. Carrara, M. Pepe, IREA-CNR, Milan, Italy

J. Guimet, V. Pascual, ICC, Barcelona, Spain

N. Koukourouvli, D. Simos, M. Vaitis, University of the Aegean, Greece

M. Redondo, GS of Land Management and Urbanism, Andalusia, Spain

Presenter: J. Guimet

The project

Overall objective:

Development of an SDI for research results with a geographic reference

produced by Universities and Research Institutions in the Mediterranean.

Co-funded by European Commission – Interreg IIIB MEDOCC

Duration: September, 2006 till March, 2008.

Partners

STSI/ICC (Secr. de Telecom. i Societat de la Informació / Inst. Cartogràfic de Catalunya)

IREA-CNR (Istituto per il Rilevamento Elettromagnetico dell’Ambiente)

UoA (University of the Aegean / Dept. of Geography)

ICA (Instituto de Cartografía de Andalucía)

E-R (Regione Emilia-Romagna – Organ. Sistemi informativi e telematica)

Results

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog

Catalan Italian Andalusian Greek Total

Web map servers 11 7 11 12 41

Metadata records 5213 1150 475 1358 8196

Layers (maps) 1423 668 335 755 3181

Services (WMS) 104 10 37 128 279

4 local geo-portals

• metadata catalogue

• web-map viewer

Results

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog Connector

Global geo-portal

Evaluation

Testing criteria mainly based on the INSPIRE implementing rules

(performance, availability and capacity)

Quantitative tests:

• catalogue applications

• web map services

• web map viewers

• geo-portals' link consistency

Qualitative questionnaires:

• difficulties

• conveniences

• resources

This form must be completed by IDE Univers Geoportal managers

Questions:

1. Which was/were the most difficult step(s) encountered in the geoportal development process?

2a. Above difficulty(ies) was/were due to C. (ex. need of more experience, of external support, better

software, wider skills, more money, 8):

2b. Suggestion(s) to overcome point(s) 2a.:

3. Which was/were the easiest step(s) you encoutered in the geoportal development process?

4. The easiness was due to CCC (ex. previous experience and skill, adequate external support, suitable

software, 8):

5. In the IDE Univers experience, which was the time necessary to develop and tune your geoportal?

6. List the skills you (and your collaborators) needed in the geoportal development:

7. In the light of your IDE Univers experience, please quantify costs for the development of your

geoportal:

Evaluation results

Quantitative tests Catalogue WMSs Viewer Geo-portal

Performance 100% 90.3% 100% N/A

Capacity100% 77.4%

errors < 20%

100% Almost

100%

Availability 100% 100% N/A 100%

Retrieval quality 100% N/A N/A N/A

Visualisation qualityN/A 100% for project viewer

55.2% for JRC viewer

N/A N/A

Link connectivity N/A N/A N/A 100%

Qualitative

questionnairesDevelopment of WMS

Most difficult task Mapfile configuration

Most convenient task UMN Mapserver installation

Time for 100 WMSs 2-5 weeks

Cost for 100 WMSs 1000-2500 euros

Expreriences

� Creation, documentation, publishing and sharing of geo-

resources is an overall process.

� Metadata editing was the most suspending factor in SDI

creation and maintenance.

� Incorporation of non-geospatial or non-digital documents or

media is essential in an academic SDI.

� Evaluation procedure is useful despite the resources required

to achieve it.

� Open source software is adequate to support the development

of SDIs.

Catalonia

• Increase in data and services.

• Stable quality of services.

Italy / Greece

• Steady number of data and services, but no guaranteed quality

Andalusia

•Withdrawal from the consortium.

Current status

• The project may be characterized as successful, in accordance with the

objectives set.

• However, the dynamics of the project was not sufficient for its further

development.

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog Connector

Global geo-portal

Current status

Catalan Italian Andalusian Greek Total

Web map servers 11 7 - 12 30

Metadata records 5388 1150 - 1358 7896

Layers (maps) 1540 668 - 755 2963

Services (WMS) 115 10 - 128 253

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog

Catalog Connector

Global geo-portal

Current status

Catalan Italian Andalusian Greek Total

Web map servers 0% 0% -100% 0% -26.8%

Metadata records +3.4% 0% -100% 0% -3.6%

Layers (maps) +8.2% 0% -100% 0% -6.8%

Services (WMS) +10.6% 0% -100% 0% -9.3%

New initiatives

Catalonia

• Promotion of SDI to other communities � New thematic SDIs in

IDEC.

Italy

• New OGC services provided by Universities and Research

Institutions.

Greece

• Funding for extending the SDI of the University of the Aegean.

Realizations

Termination of funding is not the most important drawback.

Shortcomings:

• Lack of an administrative unit to support the local SDIs (except IDEC).

• Limited publicity of the project results.

• Lack of quality criteria in the selection and description of the geo-resources.

• Lack of convenient tools to support data providers in their daily operations

related to SDI.

• Single metadata catalogue per partner.

• Very refined granularity of some collaborators.

Perspectives

The European policy for open access to research results creates new

challenges regarding academic SDIs.

Spain is the first country in the EU passed a state law on Open Access

Mandate (May, 2011).

The vision:

Every University and Research Institution in EU may develop an academic

SDI for research results, into the prospect for a European SDI for

knowledge dissemination.

Conclusions

After 3 years of the end of the project we can affirm:

• IDE-Univers was a successful story of:

− SDI generation in a bottom-up process

− Development oriented to distributed communities

− Effective deployment supported by previous experiences

• But for its continuity, it is necessary:

− Administrative support

− Quality assurance for data and services

− Promotion and marketing strategy

Visit: http://www.ideunivers.eu