Open Data and Geographic Information at IGN Spain
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Rodriguez, A.F.; 2Abad, P.; 3López, E.; 4Sánchez, A.; 5Vivas, P.; 6Hernández, L.
1NATIONAL CENTRE FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Email: afrodriguez@fomento.es
2NATIONAL CENTRE FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Email: pabad@fomento.es
3NATIONAL CENTRE FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Email: elromero@fomento.es
4NATIONAL CENTRE FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Email: asmaganto@fomento.es
5NATIONAL CENTRE FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Email: pedro.vivas@cnig.es
6JRC Email: lorena.hernandez@jrc.europa.eu.ec
Abstract
The state of the art of Open Data activities and some of its application in the field of Geographic Information in Spain are presented in this paper. Some recent actions had reactivated Open Data activities in Spain: - The approval of the new version of European Directive (2013/37/EU) on Reuse of Public Sector Information (RPSI) - The recently founded AENOR/CTN178 “Smart Cities” is working in a Spanish Standard on Open Data in the context of Smart Cities (PNE 178301 Smart Cities – Open Data). - There are a lot of Open data initiatives and webs sites flourishing in Spain, with different purposes and scopes. - The Open Knowledge Foundation has released recently (2014 october) the Open Definition version 2.0 including new requirements to guarantee openness and freedom of data. In this contribution an overview of the Spanish activities is presented, devoting special attention to the process of federation of the standard Inspire catalogue (CSW 2.0) of IGN Spain in the catalogue of the Spanish Open Data Portal (open.data.es) based on DCAT profile. The National Center for Geographic Information (CNIG) is the autonomous body under the National Geographic Institute (IGN), responsible for the publication and outreach of the data products generated by IGN accordingly to the data policy defined in FOM/956/2008, based on free and open web services and free data for non-commercial uses. To ensure the access to IGN’s resources, IGN has been implemented a discovery service (CSW) to publish an extensive collection of metadata that allows users searching and finding information through a catalogue client. Among the existing records it is possible to reach a wide variety of products: National Topographic Base, Spain´s Administrative Units Database, DTMs, orthoimagery, gazetteers etc. Metadata is conformant to INSPIRE regulation 1205/2008 regarding metadata and also to Spanish WG for IDEE metadata recommendations (NEM). Moreover, the IGN catalogue offers an INSPIRE compliant discovery service (CSW) that fulfils the Technical Guidance for the implementation of INSPIRE Discovery Services. By the other hand, Datos.gob.es is the national Open Data website, developed by the organization red.es, offers also a search interface that manages and describes the data ready to reuse produced by many Spanish public organizations. Datos.gob.es fulfills the Spanish legal framework on Open Data and Public Sector Information Re-use namely the «Royal Decree 1495/2011 of Technical Interoperability Standard for the Reuse of Information Resources». This regulation intends to set up a complete set of Interoperability Technical Rules in order to make possible the selection, identification, description, encoding, use and availability of information resources produced or stored in the public sector, in full compliance with the provisions of «Law 37/2007 on the Reuse of Information in the Public Sector». CNIG, in close cooperation with Aporta Project team, has published the first and main 32 IGN’s products in datos.gob.es. This action is just a starting phase for a future operational federation of IGN catalogue towards the Open Data catalogue. To carry out this work IGN had to review and adapt its metadata to fulfill the technical guidelines and recommendations established by the Open Data legal framework as by the Spanish Open Data coordination team. The aim of this paper is to present the experience of IGN in the publishing of its data through a federation process towards the Open Data catalogue, showing the problems and difficulties arisen, the lessons learnt, conclusions drawn and future steps to federate the Spanish NSDI catalogue in the Spanish Open Data Portal. To conclude, a general description of the key role of this activity in the coordination of Inspire and Open Data initiatives is given.
Keywords
Open Data; SDI Catalogue; Information Reuse