GUIDE for Non-IT Coastal and Marine Communities

MOTIIVE is a project funded by the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development of the European Commission, as a specific support action (SSA).
It supports the European INSPIRE initiative (INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe), which aims at making available relevant, harmonised and quality geographic information for the purpose of formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of EU policy-making.

MOTIIVE addresses the harmonisation requirements between the INSPIRE ‘Annex II’ data component “Elevation”, comprising terrestrial, bathymetric and coastal elevation data, and INSPIRE’s Annex III marine thematic data for “sea regions”, “oceanic spatial features” and “coastal zone management areas”. The MOTIIVE project specifically addresses the data harmonisation and information integration needs spanning the land-based INSPIRE initiative and the GMES ocean/marine theme. The "Global Monitoring for Environment and Security" (GMES) programme is in simple terms a concerted effort to bring data and information providers together with users, so they can better understand each other and agree on how to make environmental and security-related information available to the people who need it.

The project will support the development of INSPIRE and GMES by demonstrating how interoperability technology, using international open standards, aids in integrating multiple data sources from multiple disciplines.
Members of the MOTIIVE consortium include a network of experienced marine and coastal data providers, users and service implementers.

INSPIRE - What is a spatial information infrastructure?

The INSPIRE initiative intends to trigger the creation of a European spatial information infrastructure that delivers to the users integrated spatial information services. These services should allow the users to identify and access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources, from the local level to the global level, in an inter-operable way for a variety of uses. The target users of INSPIRE include policy-makers, planners and managers at European, national and local level and the citizens and their organizations. Possible services are the visualization of information layers, overlay of information from different sources, spatial and temporal analysis, etc. The spatial information infrastructure addresses both technical and non-technical issues, ranging from technical standards and protocols, organizational issues, data policy issues including data access policy and the creation and maintenance of geographical information for a wide range of themes, starting with the environmental sector.

INSPIRE principles:

• Data should be collected once and maintained at the level where this can be done most effectively
• It should be possible to combine seamlessly spatial data from different sources and share it between many users and applications
• Spatial data should be collected at one level of government and shared between all levels
• Spatial data needed for good governance should be available on conditions that are not restricting its extensive use
• It should be easy to discover which spatial data is available, to evaluate its fitness for purpose and to know which conditions apply for its use.

What is interoperability?
It is the ability of products, systems, or business processes to work together to accomplish a common task.

With respect to software, the term interoperability is used to describe the capability of different programmes to exchange data via a common set of business procedures, and to read and write the same file formats and use the same protocols.

Metadata and data
Literally, "data about data," metadata includes data associated with either an information system or an information object for purposes of description, administration, legal requirements, technical functionality, use and usage, and preservation. (source)

Usually it is not possible to distinguish between (raw) data and metadata because of the following effects:

Data can be both raw data and metadata at the same time. The headline of a text is both part of the text, i. e. data, and title of the text, i. e. metadata. Data and metadata can change their roles. A poem, as such, would be regarded data, but if there was a song that used it as lyrics, the whole poem could be attached to an audio file as metadata. Thus, the interpretation depends on the point of view. It is possible to create meta-meta-...-metadata. As, according to the common definition, metadata themselves are data, it is possible to create metadata about metadata, metadata about metadata about metadata and so on. Though at first look this sounds useless, it can be essential to archive metadata about metadata, e. g. to keep track of where the metadata came from when merging two documents. (source)

MOTIIVE will exploit the work already completed in regard to the development of marine metadata (MarineXML), a related marine/coastal ontology (controlled vocabulary) and interoperability technology, producing tools and methodologies. (source)

ISO Standards

What?
ISO (the International Standardization Organization) is a global network that identifies what International Standards are required by business, government and society. ISO develops them in partnership with the sectors that will put them to use, adopts them by transparent procedures based on national input and delivers them to be implemented worldwide. ISO standards are standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization. Examples of ISO standards are Environmental Management standards and Food standards. ISO standards specify the requirements for state-of-the-art products, services, processes, materials and systems, and for good conformity assessment, managerial and organizational practice.

Why?
If there were no standards, we would soon notice. Standards make an enormous contribution to most aspects of our lives - although very often, that contribution is invisible. It is when there is an absence of standards that their importance is brought home. For example, as purchasers or users of products, we soon notice when they turn out to be of poor quality, do not fit, are incompatible with equipment we already have, are unreliable or dangerous. When products meet our expectations, we tend to take this for granted. We are usually unaware of the role played by standards in raising levels of quality, safety, reliability, efficiency and interchangeability - as well as in providing such benefits at an economical cost.

ISO is the world’s largest developer of standards. Although ISO's principal activity is the development of technical standards, ISO standards also have important economic and social repercussions. ISO standards make a positive difference, not just to engineers and manufacturers for whom they solve basic problems in production and distribution, but to society as a whole.

The International Standards which ISO develops are very useful. They are useful to industrial and business organizations of all types, to governments and other regulatory bodies, to trade officials, to conformity assessment professionals, to suppliers and customers of products and services in both public and private sectors, and, ultimately, to people in general in their roles as consumers and end users.

ISO standards contribute to making the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner. They make trade between countries easier and fairer. They provide governments with a technical base for health, safety and environmental legislation. They aid in transferring technology to developing countries. ISO standards also serve to safeguard consumers, and users in general, of products and services - as well as to make their lives simpler.

When things go well - for example when systems, machinery and devices work well and safely - then it is because they conform to standards. And the organization responsible for many thousands of the standards which benefit society worldwide is ISO. (source)

How?
ISO standards are publicized and can be purchased through the ISO website. They are mainly used by countries and large sectors like fisheries. Generally, they are not used by individuals, though it is important for the general public to be aware of such standards.

ISO standards are voluntary. As a non-governmental organization, ISO has no legal authority to enforce their implementation. A certain percentage of ISO standards - mainly those concerned with health, safety or the environment - has been adopted in some countries as part of their regulatory framework, or is referred to in legislation for which it serves as the technical basis. (source)

ISO19115
This ISO standard defines the schema required for describing geographic information and services. It provides information about the identification, the extent, the quality, the spatial and temporal schema, spatial reference, and distribution of digital geographic data. One can use it for:

• the cataloguing of datasets, clearinghouse activities, and the full description of datasets
• geographic datasets, dataset series, and individual geographic features and feature properties (source)

OGC Recommendations
The ISO (International Standardization Organization) is developing standards (the “19xxx” series) for spatial data interoperability through its Technical Committee (TC) 211 on Geographic Information and Geomatics. These standards are concerned with the full spectrum of geospatial data exploitation – from discovery to access and use. OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) recommendations or standards are a type of ISO standards.

The Open Geospatial Consortium is a member-based global organisation that promotes and provides governance for a range of specifications to support interoperability between systems processing geospatial data. The aim of MOTIIVE is to provide some reference implementations for the deployment of OGC standards in the marine domain. This means that MOTIIVE is trying to create examples by using geospatial data so future users of OGC standards have something to refer to.

There is a growing trend towards enabling interoperability of spatial data. This refers to the ability to find, understand, and employ information and tools independent of physical location and platform, and includes data exchange as a special case.

Interoperability can only be achieved by information communities agreeing on standards for data and services.

Project Linkages
MOTIIVE partners are actively involved in marine related information projects as data providers or users, and in interoperability standardisation activities, with specific OGC (Open GIS Consortium) experience. They have been involved in various projects concerning data interoperability in the marine environments (ARION, COASTMON, COASTBASE, EUROSION, HIPOCAS, MARSAIS, DISMAR, MarineXML), implementation of the EC Water Framework Directive and ICZM Recommendation, plus international programmes such as EuroGOOS. Deliverables from MOTIIVE include proposals for a global marine ontology (a controlled vocabulary), a marine data model (description of how data are organized) and feature catalogue (containing the definition and descriptions of the feature types, attributes, and associations occurring in one or more sets of geographic data), plus a tested business case to create an OGC Working Group to formalize the results of the project on completion (source). Below some of the many projects linked to MOTIIVE are mentioned.

Find more on https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/twiki/bin/view/Marineweb/MOTIIVE, a community site with several projects linked to Motiive.

RISE
Reference Information Specifications for Europe (RISE), funded by the 6th Framework Programme, will be a core project under EuroSpec. EuroSpec is a programme set up by EuroGeographers, the European National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies. RISE addresses more specifically the GMES data harmonisation action line, and relates also to the INSPIRE implementation rules. This project is closely coordinated with Motiive.

GEMS (Global and regional Earth-system Monitoring using Satellite and in-situ data) is a European Union funded Integrated Project (IP) within the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development of the EU. The project will create a new European operational system for operational global monitoring of atmospheric chemistry and dynamics and an operational system to produce improved medium-range & short-range air-chemistry forecasts, through much improved exploitation of satellite data. (source)

GMES
The "Global Monitoring for Environment and Security" (GMES) represents in simple terms a concerted effort to bring data and information providers together with users, so they can better understand each other and agree on how to make environmental and security-related information available to the people who need it. (source)

HALO stands for Harmonised coordination of Atmosphere, Land and Ocean integrated projects of the GMES backbone. HALO will coordinate the architecture and system integration for the interacting parts of the Atmosphere, Land and Ocean thematic integrated projects (IP) in GMES.

INSPIRE: INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe
The INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe initiative (INSPIRE) aims at making available relevant, harmonised and quality geographic information for the purpose of formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Community policy-making.