Data-driven Economies in Central and Eastern Europe. Challenges and Perspectives

The recently published Communication on “Building a European Data Economy” (COM(2017)9) clearly highlights the increasing importance of data as a driver for growth, innovation and job creation. It is estimated that by year 2020, the value the EU data economy will increase to EUR 643 billion, representing over 3% of the EU GDP. At the same time there is no comparable and quantifiable evidence on the current state and the future perspectives of the data driven economy in the European Union neighbouring countries. It can however safely be assumed that the role of data will be following a similar pattern, and is therefore expected to be contribution to an increasing relative share of GDP. Furthermore, some European neighbouring countries, most notably those in Central and Eastern Europe, are a recognised destination for IT businesses that grow two to three times faster than in their economy of origin. Within this context, a workshop was co-organized by the World Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC). The workshop took place on 05 September as part of the annual INSPIRE Conference in 2017 (co-organised in Strasbourg and Kehl by France and Germany). The workshop explored the challenges and possibilities related with Data driven economy in Central and Eastern Europe. All the presentation of attendees are available online. The rapidly emerging spatial data infrastructures (SDI) were used as a use case to have a better insight into the data economy as they address a broad spectrum of topics that relate to the legal, technological and organisational challenges towards the use and reuse of data. Particular emphasis was put on good practices that if re-used and extended, can further foster innovation and intensify growth. This JRC technical report summarises the outcomes of the WB/UNECE/FAO/JRC workshop. It includes (i) overview of relevant processes on the global and European agenda, (ii) good practices from countries in the target region on the value-added from data that provide indications future policy directions and emerging opportunities.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom

Geoportals: an internet marketing perspective

A geoportal is a web site that presents an entry point to geo-products (including geo-data) on the web. Despite their importance in (spatial) data infrastructures, literature suggest stagnating or even declining trends in visitor numbers. In this paper relevant ideas and techniques for improving performance are derived from internet marketing literature. We tested the extent to which these ideas are already applied in practice through a survey among 48 geoportals worldwide. Results show in many cases positive correlation with trends in visitor numbers. The ideas can be useful for geoportal managers developing their marketing strateg

Development of regional spatial data infrastructure (SDI) case study in hearth of Borneo

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.The Heart of Borneo (HoB) initiative was declared on 12 February 2007 in Bali, with purpose to collaborate conservation activities in Borneo Island among Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia. The initiative will join 23 National Parks from three different countries. Concerning the fragmented geographic information from heterogeneous sources, there is a necessity to establish a better management of geographic information among three countries in Borneo Island. The establishment of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is one possible solution. In fact, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia have already developed National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI). The current status of NSDIs is critical for the development of a regional conservation SDI for HoB, but the information for current status of NSDI developments is not available. In this research, the current status of NSDI developments is examined by adopting Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP). The analysis continues with the identification of required components for developing a regional conservation SDI in HoB. The state of play analysis for the European SDI (INSPIRE) is adopted to investigate available and missing components. On this basis, recommendations for the regional SDI are provided. A prototypical geoportal for regional SDI in HoB is implemented by utilizing GeoNetwork software

Sharing integrated spatial and thematic data : the CRISOLA case for Malta and the European project Plan4all process

Sharing data across diverse thematic disciplines is only the next step in a series of hard-fought efforts to ensure barrier-free data availability. The Plan4all project is one such effort, focusing on the interoperability and harmonisation of spatial planning data as based on the INSPIRE protocols. The aims are to support holistic planning and the development of a European network of public and private actors as well as Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The Plan4all and INSPIRE standards enable planners to publish and share spatial planning data. The Malta case tackled the wider scenario for sharing of data, through the investigation of the availability, transformation and dissemination of data using geoportals. The study is brought to the fore with an analysis of the approaches taken to ensure that data in the physical and social domains are harmonised in an internationally-established process. Through an analysis of the criminological theme, the Plan4all process is integrated with the social and land use themes as identified in the CRISOLA model. The process serves as a basis for the need to view sharing as one part of the datacycle rather than an end in itself: without a solid protocol the foundations have been laid for the implementation of the datasets in the social and crime domains.peer-reviewe

Razvoj infrastrukture prostornih podataka u Hrvatskoj uz nacionalni i regionalni pristup

Although still not a member State of the European Union, Croatia has recognized in the spatial data infrastructure a concept that can significantly incite the modernization and effectiveness of the State administration, and create preconditions for the accelerated economic growth. Given this fact, Croatia has defined, after preparations which lasted several years, the legal framework for the national spatial data infrastructure establishment by adopting the Law on State Survey and Real Property Cadastre in 2007. During the adoption of this Law, great attention was paid to it being in line with the EU INSPIRE Directive (European Union, 2007) that was being adopted at the time, so the adopted provisions were fully compatible with the INSPIRE provisions. Regarding the model that Croatia has chosen in the establishment of its National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), the role of the State Geodetic Administration (SGA), the Croatian National Mapping and Cadastre Agency (NMCA), is significant. The SGA acts as a coordination body for the NSDI establishment, giving technical support to the NSDI bodies. One of the obligations is the establishment of a metadata catalogue through the national geoportal. Significant activities have been undertaken in the field of raising the awareness. The most important studies describing the manner of the NSDI establishment and current national as well as European situation have been translated into Croatian language and distributed to more than 1,000 NSDI stakeholders. Several workshops have been organised in order to transfer the best practices from the countries that have achieved big progress in this field. In parallel with the national activities, Croatia, or rather the SGA, has recognized that the spatial data infrastructure (SDI) development cannot be based on isolated national activities connected exclusively to the INSPIRE Directive but that the Croatian spatial data infrastructure development activities must be part of the development of the regional and European spatial data infrastructure (ESDI). In this context, Croatia has recognized South-Eastern Europe as a region sharing many similarities, whether with regards to the historical legacy, development degree, current development directions, reform activities or the SDI development stage, although it should be pointed out that there are also differences. Given the above-mentioned similarities, Croatia has instigated the regional cooperation linked to the development of both national and regional SDI’s. Concrete achievements on this road are the establishment of the regional cooperation between cadastral organization, launching of the annual regional conference on the cadastre and preparation of the first regional SDI project entitled INSPIRATION – Spatial Data Infrastructure in the Western Balkans (Inspiration project). At the European level, the SGA is member of EuroGeographics, European organisation whose purpose is the improvement of the ESDI development, including topographic information, cadastre and land information. This paper describes the role and activities of the SGA in the SDI establishment at the national, regional and European level.Iako još nije članica Europske unije, Hrvatska je u infrastrukturi prostornih podataka prepoznala koncept koji može u značajnoj mjeri pospješiti modernizaciju i učinkovitost državne uprave i stvoriti pretpostavke za ubrzani razvoj gospodarstva. Upravo zbog te činjenice Hrvatska je nakon višegodišnjih priprema, donošenjem Zakona o državnoj izmjeri i katastru nekretnina 2007. godine, definirala zakonodavni okvir uspostave nacionalne infrastrukture prostornih informacija. Prilikom usvajanja toga Zakona velika je pozornost posvećena usklađenosti s INSPIRE direktivom EU (European Union 2007) koja je tada bila u donošenju, tako da su usvojene odredbe u potpunosti usklađene s odredbama INSPIRE-a. Pri izboru modela koji je Hrvatska izabrala pri uspostavljanju nacionalne infrasturkture prostornih podataka (NIPP) značajna je bila uloga Državne geodetske uprave (DGU). DGU je koordinacijsko tijelo za uspostavu NIPP-a koje daje tehničku podrušku tijelima NIPP-a. Jedan od zadataka je također uspostava kataloga metapodataka kroz nacionalni geoportal. Značajne aktivnosti učinjene su na polju podizanja svijesti. Najvažnije studije koje opisuju način uspostave NIPP-a, kao i sadašnju nacionalnu i europsku situaciju prevedene su na hrvatski jezik i disdtribuirane na više od 1000 adresa. Organizirano je nekoliko radionica kako bi se prenijelo najbolje primjere iz prakse iz zemalja koje su napravile velike korake na tom polju. Paralelno s nacionalnim aktivnostima Hrvatska je, uz pomoć DGU, prepoznala da se razvoj infrastrukture postorrnih podataka (IPP) ne može temeljiti na izoliranim nacionalnim aktivnostima s isključivom povezanošću na INSPIRE direktivu, već aktivnosti izgradnje hrvatske infrastrukture prostornih podataka moraju biti dio izgradnje regionalne i europske infrastrukture prostornih podatka (EIPP). U tom kontekstu je Hrvatska prepoznala jugoistočnu Europu kao regiju s kojom dijeli mnoge sličnosti, bilo da je riječ o povijesnom nasljeđu, stupnju razvijenosti, aktualnim pravcima razvoja i reformskim aktivnostima i stanju razvoja IPP-a, iako treba istaknuti da postoje i razlike. Upravo zbog navedenih sličnosti, Hrvatska je potaknula uspostavu regionalne suradnje na izgradnji kako nacionalnih, tako i regionalnog IPP-a, s ciljem da se zajedničkim naporom svih zemalja sudionica ubrza izgradnja takvog IPP-a. Konkretna postignuća na tom putu su uspostava regionalne suradnje katastarskih organizacija, pokretanje godišnje Regionalne konferencije o katastru i priprema prvog regionalnog IPP projekta nazvanog INSPIRATION – SDI in the Western Balkan (projekt Inspiration). Na europskoj razini DGU je članica EuroGeographicsa, europske organizacije čija je svrha poboljšanje razvoja EIPP-a, uključujući topografske informacije, katastar i zemljišne informacije. U ovome se radu opisuje uloga DGU pri uspostavi IPP-a na nacionalnoj, regionalnoj i europskoj razini

Cultural heritage and sustainable development targets : a possible harmonisation? Insights from the European Perspective

The Agenda 2030 includes a set of targets that need to be achieved by 2030. Although none of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focuses exclusively on cultural heritage, the resulting Agenda includes explicit reference to heritage in SDG 11.4 and indirect reference to other Goals. Achievement of international targets shall happen at local and national level, and therefore, it is crucial to understand how interventions on local heritage are monitored nationally, therefore feeding into the sustainable development framework. This paper is focused on gauging the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals with reference to cultural heritage, by interrogating the current way of classifying it (and consequently monitoring). In fact, there is no common dataset associated with monitoring SDGs, and the field of heritage is extremely complex and diversified. The purpose for the paper is to understand if the taxonomy used by different national databases allows consistency in the classification and valuing of the different assets categories. The European case study has been chosen as field of investigation, in order to pilot a methodology that can be expanded in further research. A cross‐comparison of a selected sample of publicly accessible national cultural heritage databases has been conducted. As a result, this study confirms the existence of general harmonisation of data towards the achievement of the SDGs with a broad agreement of the conceptualisation of cultural heritage with international frameworks, thus confirming that consistency exists in the classification and valuing of the different assets categories. However, diverse challenges of achieving a consistent and coherent approach to integrating culture in sustainability remains problematic. The findings allow concluding that it could be possible to mainstream across different databases those indicators, which could lead to depicting the overall level of attainment of the Agenda 2030 targets on heritage. However, more research is needed in developing a robust correlation between national datasets and international targets

If appleseed had an open portal : making sense of data, SEIS and integrated systems for the Maltese Islands

Much sought and realistically distant, an open data system can serve as the Holy Grail for many a policy-maker and decision taker as well as the operational entities involved in the field. The steady seeding of data-related legislative tools has aided the setting up of exploratory and active systems that serve the concept of data-information-knowledge-action to academia, the general public and the implementing agencies. Legislation, inclusive of Data Protection, Freedom of Information, Public Sector Information, Aarhus, INSPIRE, SEIS and the still embryonic SENSE, have all managed to create a new reality that may be too complex for some still caught in a jurassic analogue stage where data hoarding might still be prevalent and little effort is made to jump to the post-modern reality. Efforts to push the process through various domains such as census, environment protection, spatial development and crime have helped the Maltese Islands to create a scenario that is ripe for a national data infrastructure, inter-entity data exchange, open data structuring, and free dissemination services. This process enhances the knowledge-base and reduces redundancy, whilst creating new challenges on how to make sense of all the data being made available, particularly in the interpretation or misinterpretation of the outputs. The paper reviews Malta’s process to go through the birth pains of SEIS as an open data construct, through to the dissemination of various spatial datasets and the first open portals pertaining to the various regulatory directives.peer-reviewe

Methods to Improve and Evaluate Spatial Data Infrastructures

This thesis mainly focuses on methods for improving and evaluating Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). The aim has been threefold: to develop a framework for the management and evaluation of an SDI, to improve the accessibility of spatial data in an SDI, and to improve the cartography in view services in an SDI. Spatial Data Infrastructure has been identified as an umbrella covering spatial data handling procedures. The long-term implementation of SDI increases the need for short/middle term feedbacks from different perspectives. Thus, a precise strategic plan and accurate objectives have to be defined for the implementation of an efficient environment for spatial data collection and exchange in a region. In this thesis, a comprehensive study was conducted to review the current methods in the business management literature to approach to an integrated framework for the implementation and evaluation of SDIs. In this context, four techniques were described and the usability of each technique in several aspects of SDI implementation was discussed. SDI evaluation has been considered as one of the main challenges in recent years. Lack of a general goal oriented framework to assess an SDI from different perspectives was one of the main concerns of this thesis. Among a number of the current methods in this research area, we focused on the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a general evaluation framework covering all perspectives in an SDI. The assessment study opened a window to a number of important issues that ranged from the technical to the cartographic aspects of spatial data exchange in an SDI. To access the required datasets in an SDI, clearinghouse networks have been developed as a gateway to the data repositories. However, traditional clearinghouse networks do not satisfy the end user requirements. By adding a number of functionalities, we proposed a methodology to increase the percentage of accessing required data. These methods were based on predefined rules and additional procedures within web processing services and service composition subjects to develop an expert system based clearinghouses. From the cartography viewpoint, current methods for spatial data presentation do not satisfy the user requirements in an SDI environment. The main presentation problem occurs when spatial data are integrated from different sources. For appropriate cartography, we propose a number of methods, such as the polygon overlay method, which is an icon placement approach, to emphasize the more important layers and the color saturation method to decrease the color saturation of the unimportant layers and emphasize the foreground layer according to the visual hierarchy concept. Another cartographic challenge is the geometrical and topological conflicts in data shown in view services. The geometrical inconsistency is due to the artificial discrepancy that occurs when displaying connected information from different sources, which is caused by inaccuracies and different levels of details in the datasets. The semantic conflict is related to the definition of the related features, i.e., to the information models of the datasets. To overcome these conflicts and to fix the topological and geometric conflicts we use a semantic based expert system by utilizing an automatic cartography core containing a semantic rule based component. We proposed a system architecture that has an OWL (Web Ontology Language) based expert system to improve the cartography by adjusting and resolving topological and geometrical conflicts in geoportals