How INSPIREd is NERC?

The Natural Environment Research Council (www.nerc.ac.uk) is the UK's main agency for funding and managing research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. In 2007 NERC commissioned a consultancy to prepare an INSPIRE baseline and Road Map to enable it to be compliant with the EU INSPIRE Directive well ahead of the deadlines listed in the Directive. This study provided: • A baseline of INSPIRE readiness across NERC with respect to INSPIRE requirements for metadata, discovery, view and download services; • A description of what NERC will need to provide to fully comply with the INSPIRE Directive; • A description of the technology options that are currently envisaged to implement the INSPIRE Directive; • A Road Map to show what NERC must do to meet the INSPIRE Directive; • An estimate of resources required to implement the INSPIRE Directive. This paper outlines the findings of this study

The Next Edition of IHO-S-57 (4.0): A Primer

The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is an intergovernmental consultative and technical organization that was established in 1921 to support the safety of navigation and the protection of the marine environment. IHO Special Publication 57 (IHO S-57) is the IHO Transfer Standard for Digital Hydrographic Data. It is the standard to be used for the exchange of digital hydrographic data between hydrographic offices (HOs), and for the distribution of hydrographic data to manufacturers, mariners and other data users (e.g., GIS). It was developed so that the transfer all forms of hydrographic data would take place in a consistent and uniform manner. To date, S-57 3.0/3.1 has been used almost exclusively for encoding Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs) required for ECDIS. However, S-57 is intended to support all types of hydrographic data. In order to do so, S-57 Edition 3.1 needs to expand in order to accommodate new requirements. This “Primer” explains what is planned in regard to the next edition of IHO S-57 (Edition 4). In particular, it provides a brief description about process required to align with ISO geospatial standards and the benefits to be gained. Included is an explanation about the scope of activity of the TSMAD S-57 Edition 4 Sub-WG, and how others may contribute to the process

Internet of things

Manual of Digital Earth / Editors: Huadong Guo, Michael F. Goodchild, Alessandro Annoni .- Springer, 2020 .- ISBN: 978-981-32-9915-3Digital Earth was born with the aim of replicating the real world within the digital world. Many efforts have been made to observe and sense the Earth, both from space (remote sensing) and by using in situ sensors. Focusing on the latter, advances in Digital Earth have established vital bridges to exploit these sensors and their networks by taking location as a key element. The current era of connectivity envisions that everything is connected to everything. The concept of the Internet of Things(IoT)emergedasaholisticproposaltoenableanecosystemofvaried,heterogeneous networked objects and devices to speak to and interact with each other. To make the IoT ecosystem a reality, it is necessary to understand the electronic components, communication protocols, real-time analysis techniques, and the location of the objects and devices. The IoT ecosystem and the Digital Earth (DE) jointly form interrelated infrastructures for addressing today’s pressing issues and complex challenges. In this chapter, we explore the synergies and frictions in establishing an efficient and permanent collaboration between the two infrastructures, in order to adequately address multidisciplinary and increasingly complex real-world problems. Although there are still some pending issues, the identified synergies generate optimism for a true collaboration between the Internet of Things and the Digital Earth

Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories

This paper outlines some enablers and barriers in the use of learning object repositories (LORs) to support learning within a range of communities. Key dimensions of use of LORs as well as relationships between LORs and the learning communities that they aim to support are discussed. The LORs and communities analysed in the paper are SIESWE Learning Exchange (formerly Stor Curam), JORUM, IVIMEDS, and DIDET. Guided by the Activity Theory perspective, the LORs and the communities are analysed as sociocultural activity systems. Based on this analysis, some initial barriers and enablers for the use of LORs to support learning are outlined and implications for the future use of LORs are discussed