AIP-3 Data Sharing Guidelines for GEOSS: Maximizing Data Accessibility and Interoperability

1. AIP Data Sharing investigations for GEOSSSummary of AIP-3 Data Sharing Guidelines Working Group George Percivall AIP Task Leader Open Geospatial Consortium Steven F. Browdy AIP DSGWG Leader OMS Tech, Inc.

2. Background on GEOSS Data Sharing • Data Sharing Principles call for a “full and open exchange of data, metadata, and products shared within GEOSS, recognizing relevant international instruments and national policies and legislation.” • “Full and open exchange” is further defined by: “data and information made available through the GEOSS are made accessible with minimal time delay and with as few restrictions as possible, on a nondiscriminatory basis, at minimum cost for no more than the cost of reproduction and distribution.” • Implementation guidelines were generated by the DSTF taking into account the possibility of license conditions, since they are a reality.

3. GEO Task AR-09-01bArchitecture Implementation Pilot • AIP supports SBAs by developing new process and infrastructure components for GCI and the broader GEOSS architecture • AIP-3 • Completed in February 2011 • Data Sharing Guidelines Working Group (DSGWG) “fostering interoperability arrangements and common practices for GEOSS”

4. DSGWG Scope in AIP-3 • Primary focus on handling licensing. • Licensing framework suggested by Harlan Onsrud, et. al.: “Towards Voluntary Interoperable Open Access Licenses for GEOSS” • Framework focused on open access licenses, and used Creative Commons framework as a working foundation • Secondary focus on user registration and login. • Many data sets and repositories require user authentication prior to data access • DSGWG looked at single-sign-on (SSO) as a federated solution and as a centralized solution

5. Licensing Framework for AIP-3 testing • Creative Commons used as the framework. • GEOSS SBA license special to GEOSS (needs to be written) • Legal interoperability shown by license text tokens • The restrictiveness of the license conditions increases going from CC0 to CC BY-NC-GEOSS_SBA • OTHER requires direct negotiation and understanding between the data provider and data user prior to data access

6. Licensing Provisioning • Licensing should be carried with the data • Necessary to satisfy persistent nature of licenses and to facilitate mining of license information by the GCI or client applications • Necessary to provide programmatic action based on licenses and to ability to discover data associated with specific licenses • For search and discovery, metadata for licensing should include: • Text identifier for the license associated with the data; e.g. “CC0” • Link to logo symbol used for the license, and link to actual license • In the case of attribution, the actual attribution information • For AIP-3, ISO 19115 metadata standard used to demonstrate how metadata of the data provider’s data could be populated. • ISO 19115 used by the GEOSS Clearinghouse • ISO 19115 widely used in the geospatial community

7. ISO 19115 Use • MD_Constraints • MD_LegalConstraints • accessConstraints (code = “license” or “otherRestrictions”) • useConstraints (code = “license” or “otherRestrictions”) • otherConstraints (free text) • Each attribute can occur with multiple instances • CI_Citation • Richness to handle CC BY • Should be used for full citation information • MD_Constraints utilized to capture attribution as a CC BY license.

8. ISO 19115 UML

9. Licensing Use Cases defined in AIP-3 (page 1 of 2) • Search and discovery by specifying license conditions (CC0, CC BY, etc.) at GEO Web Portal • Data access after search and discovery by observing license conditions at GEO Web Portal. • Displayed after non-license type search • Sort result set by license type • Programmatic (non-user interactive) data access using license conditions • Metadata carries license information • Program handles licensing logic automatically

10. Licensing Use Cases defined in AIP-3 (page 2 of 2) • Data access to multiple data sets after search and discovery by observing license conditions at the user-interactive GEO Web Portal. • Merging or layering multiple data sources • Legal processing must take place to reflect legal interoperability • Programmatic (non-user interactive) access to multiple data sets using license conditions. • Merging or layering multiple data sources • Program handles licensing logic and legal interoperability automatically

11. Licensing use cases Implemented in AIP-3 • Use Cases 1 & 2 implemented in AIP-3 • Searching for, and accessing, data with a CC BY license attached • Video demosntration available online  www.ogcnetwork.net/geoss/aip-3/

12. User Registration in a GEOSS context • Some GEOSS data providers require users to register and login to access data • Many solutions for user registration and login already in place with data providers • DSGWG recommended solution must have very light impact on data providers. • Single-sign-on (SSO) is desired for users • Many, if not most data providers don’t support SSO outside their domains • SSO will minimize the impact on data users.

13. User Registration Approaches by DSGWG Two approaches for managing the information • Federated approach among GEOSS data providers • Centralized approach using a GCI component Two approaches for user identity protocols • OpenID • Shibboleth • Research into shibboleth resulted in many examples showing a very heavy impact on deployment. • SSO solution needs to be instantiated to integrate with Shibboleth • PKI deployment necessary with possible custom modifications • Identity provider deployment necessary with possible custom modifications • Policy rules needed for configuration of components • Fairly steep learning curve

14. Federated Approach with Open ID • Users register with an existing OpenID server: • OpenID, Google, Yahoo, etc. • Users must login to each domain • Each validating with OpenID • No control over logout • Logging out at one domain logs a user out at all domains logged into • No control for data providers over the duration of login • Data providers would have to implement OpenID interaction • Data providers cannot provide use metrics to GEOSS

15. OpenID Federated Approach Google OpenID used as an example

16. GCI-Centralized Approach using OpenID • Users register with a SSO component hosted by GEOSS, say in the GCI • Use OpenID-like authentication external to the GCI, so GEOSS is not storing user personal information • User logs-in once to use multiple GEOSS services • Log out at one service does not logout everywhere • Allows data provider control over login duration • Data providers • Implement interface to GCI SSO component, but would not affect an existing authentication scheme • Can provide metrics to GEOSS on services used and data accessed

17. GCI-Centralized Approach with OpenID Includes post AIP-3 design to use external OpenID service

18. AIP DSGWG+ Recommendations • Implementation of data licenses, including attribution, for further testing of how well licenses are handled. • Use of the Creative Commons open standards-based licensing framework. • Implementation of a central GCI component and remote OpenID for handling SSO in GEOSS • Design of appropriate service interfaces to support the interactions between the central GCI component, the GEOSS users, and the GEOSS data providers. • Continue to work with DSTF on use conditions and user management • e.g., DSTF is looking at CC and beyond

19. References • GEO • earthobservations.org • GEO Architecture Implementation Pilot • www.ogcnetwork.net/AIpilot • GEOSS registries and SIF • geossregistries.info Steven F. Browdy steveb@omstech.com George Percivall percivall@myogc.org