A packed programme with workshops and parallel sessions held simultaneously, which made it at times hard to choose. The INSPIRE Conference is slowly moving to reflect new developments, such as new OGC standards, e.g. WFS 3.0 and for sensor data APIs the SensorThings standard, and a strong focus on Smart Cities. It was interesting to see that presentations were not limited to Member States, also countries such as Turkey realise the potential of the INSPIRE Framework. It was also good to see that a number of INSPIRE organisations are developing interfaces to incorporate user feedback and citizens’ generated data. Many of the most valuable spatial data are produced, managed and maintained at the local level. The amount of data generated by organisations, citizens and objects is exploding in volume and variety. If we consider data to be no longer the property of one party but rather as an exchange mechanism between the public sector, companies and citizens, then the data need to be open, understandable and interpretable by all. Interoperability issues go beyond technical and legal aspects but should also include interoperability of services, human interoperability and good governance. The challenge of governing open spatial data at local level is twofold: municipalities not only have to decide how to govern their own relationships with other stakeholders in the open data domain, but also need to think about their involvement in, contribution to, and adoption of national open data initiatives. In other words, how to facilitate the exchange mechanism created by open data. On Tuesday 18 Sept. KCOD’s Frederika Welle Donker presented the findings of the AMS E-GOS project, where the link between governance and performance of open data policies at municipal level was investigated.
The article “Stakeholder analysis of the governance framework of a national SDI dataset – whose needs are met in the buildings and address register of the Netherlands?”by Serena Coetzee, Martijn Odijk, Bastiaan van Loenen, Janette Storm & Jantien Stoter presents a stakeholder analysis of the Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen (BAG), a collection of base information about addresses and buildings in the Netherlands. The information is captured and maintained by municipalities and integrated into a national base register by Kadaster, the Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency of the Netherlands. The stakeholder analysis identifies organisations involved in the BAG governance framework, describes their interests, rights, ownerships and responsibilities in the BAG, and maps the relationships between them. Analysis results indicate that Kadaster and the municipalities have the highest relative importance in the governance framework of the BAG. The study reveals challenges of setting up a governance framework that maintains the delicate balance between the interests of all stakeholders. The results provide guidance for SDI role players setting up governance frameworks for national or global datasets.
On September 13, KCOD’s Bastiaan van Loenen presented the book ‘Open Data Exposed’ to the Open data working group of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. The main objectives of this book, edited by the KCOD and KU Leuven, are to expose key aspects that have a relevance when dealing with open data viewed from different perspectives and to provide appealing examples of how open data is implemented worldwide.
On Wednesday June 13, Agung Indrajit and Frederika Welle Donker presented their research at the AGILE conference in Lund Sweden. Agung’s paper was entitled ‘Prospect of open SDI in Developing Countries: Case Study Indonesia’. In his presentation he provided an overview of the open spatial data infrastructure in Indonesia acknowledging the importance of open data and open processes. The lack of openness has resulted in conflicting data within government about the need to import rice, while open data in Indonesia highlighted overlaps in provided permits to exploit land. In the latter case several high level bureaucrats were taken to court.
Aim and objectives
The aim of the ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’ Workshop is to initiate the definition of a renewed Spatial Data Infrastructure Research Agenda for ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’, incorporating both technical and non-technical perspectives and research challenges. The workshop took place on Tuesday 12 June 2018, in Lund (Sweden).
The workshop had three objectives:
- To provide an overview of recent and ongoing research on SDI and related topics
- To identify gaps and challenges in SDI research and define a research agenda for future SDI research
- To (re-)establish a research community for SDI research that promotes and enables active collaboration and engagement across multiple disciplines and regions
Workshop program
9:00 – 9:30 Welcome and introduction
On Tuesday the 12th of June the AGILE Pre-conference workshop ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’ took place in Lund (Sweden). The workshop consisted of a series of presentations of past, ongoing and future SDI research, followed by discussions on the development and implementation of a research agenda for future SDI research. The presentations were organised into three thematic sessions: Governance for innovation and sustainability; SDI for integration, visualization and exploration; and SDI and Open Data. The discussions focused on new research topics and challenges for SDI research in the future and strategies and actions for fostering collaboration and exchange in SDI research.
The deadline for submitting an abstract to the AGILE 2018 Pre-conference workshop ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’ has been extended to April 10. The ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’ workshop would like to offer SDI researchers an opportunity to share their research and contribute to formulating the SDI research agenda. Researchers interested in presenting their research at the workshop are asked to submit a short abstract of their research project. For more information on the workshop, please visit the workshop webpage.
The Beyond Data Event was held on 29 March 2018 for the 9th time in Eindhoven. As part of the event, so-called round table sessions, were organised, in which participants could join an open discussion in a small group on a specific topic. Dr. Frederika Welle Donker of the Knowledge Centre Open Data was invited to facilitate a round table session on the governance of open data as part of the E-GOS Local project. The half-hour session was well attended by participants mainly from municipalities, provinces and research institutes. The discussion centred around the deliberations municipalities have to make to assess which data can or cannot be published as open data. Municipalities collect much data, but can the data be published as open data? How about privacy concerns? How about incomplete or imperfect data quality? How can municipalities move from one-way data portals to two-way communication and data exchange with citizens and companies? And how can citizens get access to data that may be politically sensitive, e.g. locations of crimes or actual air quality data? Experiences were shared and viewpoints exchanged. Half an hour proved to be too short to discuss all governance issues. It did provide a lively platform to air concerns.
An article on ‘Assessing the Openness of Spatial Data Infrastructures‘ has been published as part of the INSPIRE Section of IJSDIR. The article by Glenn Vancauwenberghe, Kotryna Valečkaitė, Bastiaan van Loenen and Frederika Welle Donker, introduces the Open Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) Assessment Framework as a new approach for assessing the openness of SDIs. Open SDIs are SDIs in which non-government actors such as businesses, citizens, researchers and non-profit organizations can contribute to the development and implementation of the SDI, use spatial data with as few restrictions as possible and benefit from using these geographic data. A pilot application of the new framework resulted in the Map of Open SDI in Europe, which aims to show the level of openness of national SDIs in Europe. The map could become a relevant and practical tool that shows the status of Open SDIs in Europe and supports decision makers and practitioners in making their own SDI more open.
On March 2 2018, the Knowledge Centre Open Data will present the status of open geographic data at the Open data day in Croatia. For more information see: