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Discovering and Sharing Geospatial Data. ShareGeo. http://edina.ac.uk/projects/sharegeo/. Why Share Geospatial data?. Many decades of collection and use of geospatial data in a range of academic disciplines for research and teaching
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Discovering and Sharing Geospatial Data ShareGeo http://edina.ac.uk/projects/sharegeo/
Why Share Geospatial data? • Many decades of collection and use of geospatial data in a range of academic disciplines for research and teaching • Considerable cost and time invested in geospatial data creation • Potential for creating new datasets • Increase the visibility of your research • Create a record of your data • Access derived licensed data
Repository Technology • Using DSpace 1.5.x and XMLUI (Manakin) with Postgres database • Developed own theme using CSS • Developed add on for statistics (who downloaded what dataset and how often) • Authorisation library integrated with Digimap users (via UK federation)
ShareGeo Overview • Supports geospatial data derived from licensed materials as well as open-access data • Access restricted to registered Digimap users because of IPR concerns over derived data from Ordnance Survey, BGS etc. • Data can be for anywhere in the world
Examples of Geospatial data in ShareGeo Land -use GPS DTM Boundaries Grids Derived OS data Imagery
What can you do with ShareGeo? • Find: users can search for geo data using a variety of methods, including by map search interface • Re-Use: users can download datasets for their own use in GIS. • Share: users can contribute their own datasets for sharing with other ShareGeo users See GRADE project for historical information: http://edina.ac.uk/projects/grade/
Current Statistics Current Stats (Jan-July 09): • 2000 logins • 1000 unique users • 80 datasets deposited (though not many voluntarily) • 438 dataset downloads • Most popular datasets: Grid squares, DCW for UK and Postcode Areas all downloaded more than 20 times
Spatially Enabling ShareGeo • Implemented Geo-Search functionality using the open source OpenLayers API with access to Google Maps • Search ‘within’ or ‘intersecting’ a bounding box • Results of searches are shown graphically on a map as bounding boxes • Searching done on a database table storing the coordinate limits of the bounding box of the dataset
ShareGeo Ingest Package • The following file formats are accepted, packed in a zip archive with a maximum size limit of 1Gb uncompressed • Vector • GML, KML(KMZ), Shapefile, MapInfo, E00 • Raster • ArcInfo GRID, Erdas Imagine, GeoTIFF/TFW • Tabular • CVS with spatial columns
ShareGeo Ingest Process • Ingest process uses the open source software OGR/GDAL to read and validate submitted datasets • Accepts zip files and then unpacks them to extract spatial datasets • Extract bounding coordinates from dataset • Displays extracted extents on the map background and allows users to modify them in case they are wrong • Extents and format information is automatically added to the items metadata • Can add additional geographical information in the form of named places (see Edinburgh DataShare for an example of specifying controlled place names)
Access and Use Issues • ShareGeo restricted to Digimap users therefore not ‘open’ • Control access to specific datasets based on users permissions - but we rely on users to be truthful when they submit a dataset. • Still some confusion over what are the IPR rights to datasets – particularly evident when datasets are contributed • Lack of community awareness • Alternative ‘commercial’ sites now appearing
Future technical improvements • Integrate with common desktop applications for ‘one-touch’ submission e.g. using SWORD • Visualize actual data with plug-in application • Expose metadata either to search engines (Google) directly or via Go-Geo • Provide data in other formats, including web-services • Add features such as annotations, tagging and ratings
Future policy improvements • Source more open data • Create an ‘open access’ ShareGeo for unlicensed materials • Measure and display re-use of data better • Improve visibility of re-used of data e.g. in citations • Seamless interoperability with Go-Geo metadata portal
The End • Big question is how to get community to contribute more data???? • More Info available at: http://edina.ac.uk/projects/sharegeo/index.shtml