INSPIRE Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe Minutes Kick Off meeting Spatial Data Services Working Group Title Minutes Kick Off meeting Spatial Data Services Working Group Creator European Commission Date 29/10/2010 Subject Spatial Data Services, exploratory phase Status Final Version Publisher European Commission Type Text Description Minutes of the first meeting of the Spatial Data Services Working Group help in Ispra, IT, on the 26 th of October Contributor EC/JRC, WG Format MS Word (doc) Source Rights Public Identifier Minutes SDS WG 26-10-10 Ispra V1.0.doc Language EN Relation Not applicable Coverage Project duration
Table of Contents ACTIONS LIST... 3 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS... 4 DRAFT AGENDA... 4 INTRODUCTION AND TOUR DE TABLE... 5 AGENDA APPROVAL... 5 COMMUNICATION FACILITIES... 5 TERMS OF REFERENCE... 6 MISSION... 6 OBJECTIVES... 6 APPROACH... 6 DELIVERABLES... 7 TIMELINE... 8 BASIC ASSUMPTIONS... 8 INSPIRE AND THE SDS... 10 BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS... 10 THE ROLE OF SPATIAL DATA SERVICES IN THE INFRASTRUCTURE... 10 DEVELOPING IR FOR THE HARMONIZATION OF SDS... 11 EXAMPLES OF SPATIAL DATA SERVICES... 11 NEXT STEPS... 12 FIRST TELECONFERENCE... 12 OVERALL SCHEDULE...12 REFERENCES... 12 2
Actions List Action ID Description Actionee Due Date Status M1-A1 Set the mailing list access status JRC 05/11/10 Open to closed M1-A2 Access to the CIRCA folder JRC 05/11/10 Open only by WG members and JRC M1-A3 Update terms of reference JRC 05/11/10 Open M1-A4 nominate a chair/substitute WG 30/11/10 Open M1-A5 Set-up SDS WG web page in JRC 05/11/10 Open INSPIRE web site M1-A6 Define the consultation process WG 30/11/10 Open M1-A7 Provide more details on the WG 30/11/10 Open distinction between NS and SDS M1-A8 Provide a recommendation if WG 30/11/10 Open SDS of type discovery, view, download, transform and invoke are or not in the scope of the implementing rules M1-A9 Provide a simple example of the FR 10/11/10 Open constraints an ASDS could face M1-A10 Describe oil spill forecast NO 12/11/10 Open service as an example of a complex spatial data service M1-A11 Send a copy (or URL) of the SI 12/11/10 Open slides on registry service and gazetteer service presented at the last IOC TF meeting M1-A12 Provide example of a specific CZ 12/11/10 Open download service M1-A13 Provide access to the IOC TF JRC 29/10/10 Closed template for describing services M1-A14 Provide the description of a BG 12/11/10 Open thesaurus service M1-A15 Provide a description of the NO 12/11/10 Open Geospatial and Cadastre API M1-A16 Provide a description of the CZ 12/11/10 Open Czech Republic Cadastre service M1-A17 Provide list of questions to be answered to help refining the scope of the Spatial Data Services JRC 05/11/10 Open 3
Action ID Description Actionee Due Date Status M1-A18 Provide individual draft answers WG 12/11/10 Open to the questions on the scope M1-A19 Provide list of Spatial Data JRC 05/11/10 Open Services included in the first National INSPIRE monitoring and reporting reports. M1-A20 Send draft minutes to WG JRC 29/10/10 Closed List of participants Working Group JRC Code Country Attending FR France Yes CZ Czech Republic Yes SI Slovenia No UK United Kingdom Yes NO Norway Yes LV Latvia No SE Sweden Yes BG Bulgaria Yes Attended Draft Agenda - Introduction and Tour de Table - Agenda Approval (All) - Communication facilities (JRC) - Presentation of the terms of reference (JRC) - Discussion and approval of terms of reference (All) - INSPIRE and the SDS: discussion paper presentation (JRC) - Discussion on INSPIRE and the SDS (All) - Developing IR for the harmonisation of SDS: discussion paper presentation (JRC) - Discussion on IR development (All) - SDS examples in the MS: brainstorming (potentially with presentation from the working group) (All) - Next Steps 4
- AOB Introduction and Tour de Table The JRC welcomed the participants, thanked them to volunteer to help the Commission in the exploratory phase for the development of spatial data services implementing rules and expressed gratitude to the National Contact Points for the nomination of experts. During the tour table, some experts reported the worry in their member states about the development of additional implementing rules on Spatial Data Services. The JRC clarified that with the working group activity and the expected recommendations, the picture will most certainly become clearer and worries should be alleviated. Agenda Approval The draft agenda was approved and no additional discussion point were added to the last item on the agenda Any Other Business Communication Facilities The JRC introduced the communications facilities. More precisely the following items were proposed by the JRC: - a mailing list - A CIRCA (Communication & Information Resource Centre Administrator) folder as a reference repository - Phone conference facility - Web Conference via the Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro tool Decision 1 The mailing list shall be closed. More precisely only subscribed members will be able to send messages and subscription will be effective only after the moderator (JRC) explicit approval. Decision 2 The access to the CIRCA folder shall be restricted to the Working Group members and the JRC facilitators. 5
Decision 3 Bi-weekly web and/or audio conferences will be convened. Terms of Reference Mission The following mission statement was confirmed: Working Group Mission Statement The spatial data services working group supports the European Commission for the definition and refinement of the technical and organizational elements required for the development of the draft Implementing Rules for the spatial data services through the provision of recommendations. Objectives The JRC presented the following objectives for the Working Group: To detail definition and scope of the Spatial Data Services To refine scope of the Spatial Data Services Implementing Rules To refine the spatial data services Implementing Rules development process The addition of priorities for the second objective was proposed, discussed and a consensus reached, leading to the following list of objectives. Working Group Objectives 1) To detail the definition and the scope of the Spatial Data Services 2) To refine the scope and the priorities of the Spatial Data Services Implementing Rules 3) To Refine the spatial data services Implementing Rules development process Approach 6
The JRC presented the following draft approach for the development of the recommendations - Decisions are taken through a consensus building process - The Working Group appoints a chair/substitute to coordinate the consensus building process - The Working Group defines its decision and document editing process - All decisions and choices will be documented in appropriate documents for ultimately public availability - The Working Group defines the consultation process for the relevant documentation taking into account the current INSPIRE review process. A consensus was reached on the proposed approach while the nomination of the chair/substitute and the definition of the decision and document editing process have been postponed. Decision 4 The JRC will continue providing coordination support until a chair/substitute is nominated The public availability of documents was also discussed and a consensus was reached on an initial list of documents to be made publicly available. Also the JRC proposed to setup a web page in the INSPIRE web site to contain the public version of documents. Decision 5 - The initial list of documents to be made available in the Spatial Data Services Working Group Web Page is: - The final version of the terms of reference - The final version of minutes - The Presentations Deliverables The JRC confirmed that the expected deliverables are documented decisions and recommendations needed to fulfill the working group objectives. The JRC also clarified that the activity is not only an audit activity but that proposals are also expected. Decision 6 7
The working group will deliver documented decisions and recommendations fulfilling the working group objectives. Timeline The JRC informed that the expected duration of the activity is from October 2010 to March 2011 and clarified that the new date for the end of the exploratory phase, originally planned to end in December 2010, is proposed to take into account the request from some National Contact Points to delay the development of the Implementing Rules and to also take into account the INSPIRE Directive that foresees the last Implementing Rules to be adopted by the end of 2012. Decision 7 The Working Group will deliver its documented decisions and recommendations in March 2011 at the latest. Basic Assumptions In the context of INSPIRE, Network Services (NS) are not Spatial Data Services (SDS). This assumption was discussed and clarification was sought from the JRC on how are they different. The JRC indicated that: first of all the network services are the building blocks while the spatial data services are resources in the infrastructure. Network services are mandated to be developed and to provide access to all spatial data services while spatial data services may not have to be developed and are not mandated to process all spatial data sets or metadata. The Working Group compared the network service of type invoke to a food vending machine with the spatial data services being the food items and reached a consensus on the veracity of this assumption and on the need to provide more details on this distinction. Decision 8 8
The Working Group reached a consensus on the effective difference between Network Services and Spatial Data Services and will provide additional details on the distinction between Spatial Data Services and Network Services. In the Member States there is (or will be in the future) a wide variety of Spatial Data Services in terms of functionality, scope, protocols, interfaces etc. Decision 9 The Working group reached a consensus on the existence or future availability of a wide variety of Spatial Data Services. Invoke services are services that allow SDS to be invoked; assuming that this does not necessarily mean that the Invoke Service runs or executes the SDS itself the Invoke Service might be an enabler. The JRC clarified that this assumption is indeed in line with article 11 (e) of the INSPIRE Directive that specifies that a network service of type invoke allows the invocation and may not perform the invocation. The working group stressed the importance of the relationship between the spatial data services and the network service of type invoke that could on one side of the spectrum be an extension of the network service of type discovery and on the other side be similar to a Web Processing Service as specified by the Open Geospatial Consortium. The INSPIRE Directive does not require the implementation of new SDS by the MS Decision 10 The Working Group reached a consensus that implementation of new spatial data services are not required by the INSPIRE Directive. The Working Group also stressed that contrary to the spatial data sets where distinct implementing rules are requested for each spatial data theme, a generic implementing rules for spatial data services is currently envisioned that would apply to all relevant spatial data services. The working group also reached a consensus on the fact that an answer to the following question is indeed an integral part of the refinement of the scope of the implementing rules Is the target for the Implementing Rules to be generic? 9
Spatial Data Services provided by third parties are also part of the infrastructure Some experts indicated that private companies in their Member State are worried that the implementing rules will be imposed leading to unrealistic cost. A consensus was reached that once the proportionality principle is taken into account, it should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat. Using the previous analogy of the food vending machine, once your chocolate bar fits in the machine then you can ask the vendor to have it included and proposed to the users. INSPIRE and the SDS [1] aims at providing background materials, introducing some options and triggering discussion. The JRC presented the salient points of this document and the items leading to discussion are listed below. Basic Building Blocks The JRC indicated that the network services are for sharing spatial data sets and spatial data services. They indeed represent the access layer of the Infrastructure where each type of network service has a well defined role. The status of a view service tightly coupled with a spatial data set with a very specific set of operations and parameters was discussed, more precisely is it to be considered as a spatial data service or not? A consensus was reached by the working group that indeed a decision is needed about the inclusion/exclusion of spatial data service of the type of the network services in the scope of the spatial data services implementing rules. The role of Spatial Data Services in the Infrastructure Several items were discussed and a consensus was reached on detailing the following points: the need not to reinvent the wheel and to take into account existing initiatives such as linked data in the United Kingdom. The need to be forward-looking and to be open to input coming from the annex III spatial data theme specifications that may provide pertinent requirements. The need to clarify whether an SDS will have to be modified to process the relevant spatial data sets once they are put in conformity with the relevant 10
regulation? Similarly is a spatial data service that processes non-compliant spatial data sets part of the Infrastructure? The need to take into account the role of the spatial data set when specifying requirements for the corresponding spatial data services, for example it could be envisioned that a spatial data service should be upgraded when the spatial data set it produces is transformed for INSPIRE compliance or it may not be necessary to impose INSPIRE compliance to transient or encapsulated spatial data sets. The need to see the implementing rules as an opportunity for developing further the infrastructure and application was reiterated. Developing IR for the harmonization of SDS The working group indicated that the proposed alternatives are only possible starting points and that a possible way forward would be using examples. The working group indicated that it could be currently envisioned the spatial data services implementing rules to enrich the spatial data infrastructures and to create a platform that would support the addition of new services. Also maybe not all services should be included therefore requiring some kind of prioritization. The Web Processing Service developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium is an example of a generic framework. Examples of Spatial Data Services The working group proposed the following examples: - An initiative in Norway is currently under consultation to define and implement API that would allow municipalities to directly access and manage geospatial data while before it was done using documents. - In Norway, the cadastre is stored in a central database and an API has been developed to access and manage it. Additionally some applications have been built on top of it. - In the Czech Republic, a service provides cadastral information based on geographic coordinates. - After a request was sent to the French OGC Forum the examples provided were a Gazeteer service, a path computation service, an altimetric computation service and an Image Orthorectification service. - Sweden is currently in the process of developing a Service Oriented Architecture, therefore currently there is more applications than services API available. 11
Next Steps First Teleconference Date and time: 16 th of November, 11.00-12.00 CET First agenda Items: - Adoption of K.O minutes - Review of Actions - Discuss answers to questions regarding the scope - Discuss further the scope of the Spatial Data Services - Consultation process definition - Table of Content of the outcome document - Next steps Overall Schedule The Working Group aims at: - finalizing the recommendations for the scope of the spatial data services by end of November - Finalizing the recommendations for the scope of the Implementing Rules by mid January. - Finalizing the recommendations for the implementing rules development process by mid February. - Finalizing the recommendations document by mid march. Decision 11 The working group will write a document containing the set of recommendations References [1] JRC, Towards Implementing Rules for INSPIRE Spatial Data Services, v2.2, 06/10/2010 12