| ESDI
& INSPIRE |
Overarching
structure | Minimise
costs | Quality
A revised
strategy for EuroGeographics was discussed and agreed
at its General Assembly of October 2004 in Athens. The strategy
outlines:
- the role and function of EuroGeographics and its member
NMCAs in the wider pan-European geographic information (GI)
market
- and the anticipated adoption of the INSPIRE
directive that will legislate for the development of Europe’s
Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI)
In developing this strategy the EuroSpec programme aims at
the following main objectives:
1) EuroSpec represents the collective contributions
of its members to achieving data interoperability and creating
the foundation of an European Spatial Data Infrastructure
(ESDI), at the same time helping to implement the
INSPIRE
directive.
EuroSpec meets demand from public and commercial organisations
for cross-border and pan-European information that is harmonised,
easy to access and integrate, and of a high quality. This
data is essential for good governance, the delivery of improved
public services. Increasingly, it is being used to benefit
business and the citizen through commercial applications
such as transport, finance, marketing, telecommunication
and retail.
By coordinating activities and addressing processes, the
EuroSpec programme will support EuroGeographics members,
in partnership with the other big player of the GI market,
in the creation of an ESDI and will make a major contribution
to INSPIRE.
2) EuroSpec provides an overarching
structure to the many individual
projects being undertaken to attain interoperability between
members’ datasets.
Many such projects identify the requirements of users, analyse
the market, determine specifications and create prototypes
for specific layers of harmonised reference information.
Each project contributes to the wider work undertaken by
EuroGeographics on global data models, pricing and licensing
infrastructures, partnership establishment and system architecture.
EuroGeographics’ influence and success is totally
founded on members’ dedication and collaboration.
The considerable work undertaken and milestones reached
to date are thanks to the partnerships and effective relationships
that its member NMCAs have forged through its various Expert
Groups and Projects.
Back
to top
3) The programme helps to minimise the costs
involved in producing, maintaining, delivering and using reference
information, and as such helps remove many barriers impeding
progress in all sectors related to geographic information.
By developing a shared vision of the modelling of Reference
Information, its maintenance and distribution, overall economy
of scale will be achieved. Maximum re-use of information
will become a realistic target, and considerable savings
in data processing will result from the ensuing cross-border
interoperability. The programme will thus minimize costs
for producers, and therefore reducing usage rights for all
types of users.
4) The Quality policy of EuroSpec defines
a general framework for quality management of datasets. A
quality implementation plan describes the general processes
of how the quality policy will be implemented throughout the
EuroSpec programme and its diverse constituents.
The key players of the policy are the users, the NMCAs,
EuroGeographics and the service providers. Quality management
processes include identifying the users' requirements, development
of a general quality model for datasets, setting the quality
requirements e.g. conformance levels, control and evaluation
procedures in data production and delivery and reporting
the quality results to the users in metadata.
The Expert Group on quality will manage the quality implementation
plan and all EuroSpec projects will describe quality models
for the datasets. Both Quality policy and the implementation
plan are using the international standards (e.g. ISO 9000,
ISO19100) and best practices among the NMCAs.
Back
to top
|
