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Desembre 2011

10 years of the IDEC:

January 2002 - Desember 2011

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ÍNDEX

Barcelona, October 2000 ......................................................................................................................... 4

I. Origins and presentation .............................................................................................................. 4

II. 2002: My first steps ...................................................................................................................... 4

Standars? Metadata? .............................................................................................................................. 5

Now, I need a Catalog .............................................................................................................................. 6

I’m growing up… ...................................................................................................................................... 6

My childhood was marked by the continuous upgrading ........................................................................ 6

III. My childhood ................................................................................................................................ 6

Beginning with sectoral SDI… .................................................................................................................. 7

IV. My youth ...................................................................................................................................... 7

Now they know... and study me! ............................................................................................................. 8

… And then INSPIRE arrived ..................................................................................................................... 9

Reforms and adaptations ...................................................................................................................... 10

And participation of local entities .......................................................................................................... 10

as well .................................................................................................................................................... 10

Problems to be understood. A few thoughts ......................................................................................... 11

Who uses me? ........................................................................................................................................ 12

Progressing... ......................................................................................................................................... 13

Self- control ............................................................................................................................................ 14

The catalog ............................................................................................................................................ 14

Towards an extension of my goals: An SDI for geospatial resources (sensors, PRG) ............................. 15

V. My maturity: close to my tenth birthday .................................................................................... 15

Uses, extension, visibility... is it worthwhile? ......................................................................................... 18

Are SDI dead? The INSPIRE obsession .................................................................................................... 18

From geographic information infrastructure to georesources infrastructure ....................................... 20

Not everything is permitted (or how ...................................................................................................... 20

to guide the user about quality) ............................................................................................................ 20

VI. The future ................................................................................................................................... 20

Coming years ......................................................................................................................................... 21

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PHOTO ALBUM

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Barcelona, October 2000 I was conceived from a mere idea, an idea that almost went unnoticed. It was the year 2000 when the Catalan section of the AESIG prepared, presented and distributed the White Paper on the GIS sector in Catalonia. This document contained my DNA, my origins, as the most remarkable conclusion was the need to set up an SDI in Catalonia in order to activate and strengthen the GI sector. The idea was not new; after the United States NSDI began to prove itself as a good idea, similar initiatives started to grow in Europe.

At that time, those who conceived me as an idea started to shop me around, looking for a sponsor to support me. And that sponsor eventually appeared. My parents’ talents as matchmakers paved the way for the marriage between two partners: the Secretaria de Telecomunicacions i Societat de la Informació, an organization with funds to promote initiatives for digitization, and the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya, birthplace of many other initiatives and always willing to take part in all sorts of adventures.

That is how I came to be christened in October 2001 in a social ceremony chaired by the minister for Empresa y Ocupación de la Generalitat de Catalunya (autonomous government) and attended by a hundred guests of all ages and positions. My commitment to society, and that between the two entities that sponsored me, were sealed.

A governess had to be found to look after me during my development; someone to take care of me, someone to watch over my growth and guide me through the adventure of the life I had just begun. I must say that I was fortunate at this juncture, as the same person who conceived I became my guide and mentor A long time ago, my mentor confessed to me that he had no experience with children like me. However, I must say in his defense that no one, or almost no one, in the world had such experience. Nevertheless, he used his intuition to figure out what I needed and what I was eventually to become and be capable of, and thus he figured out the best way to raise me. He tried to shape the fundamental ideas about my individuality and character that had already begun to spread. He started by analyzing other creatures or projected creatures similar to me all over the world; we all need references. He did succeed in establishing something, as he built an initial infrastructure which I now see as simple and childish, but that represented a good starting point, at that time. That way, a preliminary report on how to promote my work was prepared and adopted by my mentors. It outlined and discussed, to the extent allowed by the state of the art at that time, my short and long term goals. They could be summarized as the following: to

I. Origins and presentation

II. 2002: My first steps

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inventory the available geographic information; to classify this information and provide a browsing service based on a catalog, to investigate and apply international standards in all my components, to promote the cooperation of government departments in my design, to implement a number of pilot demonstration projects, to communicate my birth and future service perspectives and, finally, to create in me tools to disseminate, visualize and share geoinformation.

A website (Geoportal) was created for my presentation in society. It announced my existence, and featured documented information on similar well-known projects, and access to information on international standards. The Geoportal also outlined the project targets. Actually, it was little more than a mere "birth announcement" after the already-mentioned public commitment.

Standars? Metadata?

My first main activity was to inventory the available information and describe it using informative forms called metadata. Consequently, one of my first tasks was to decide which metadata standard to use. At that time, the only known operative standard was the CSDG, created by the FGDC, although the ISO 19115 was being mentioned with increasing frequency. They were similar and both very complex, but we had to decide which one to use. In the end, we chose the latter, mainly because of its "international" qualification. It took us a long time to understand the structure and meaning of all the fields described in the standard, but we learned a great

deal. The choice was not a trivial one, since if we were to invest considerable effort in the description of data sets; we had to be sure to use a format with future projection. There was another reason to choose the ISO 19115. At that time, there was virtually no software to edit and write the metadata files, and what software existed was too expensive. I couldn’t ask my contributors, who were going to voluntarily create metadata, to not only make the effort of understanding the standard but also to buy, install and maintain an expensive software package. From the beginning, I intended to give every possible support to my collaborators, informing and helping them in their work, and also providing them with free software to ease their task. Thus, I commissioned a program, MetaD (currently in its version 4), that would self-load locally on the volunteer’s PC and guide them through metadata building. I complemented this strategy with the publication of a brochure explaining who I was, why I needed metadata, how I’d use the information and the benefits I’d bring, as well as other messages intended to motivate collaborators. Thanks to this intense “marketing” work, I soon enlisted several organizations with the ability and will to generate these essential metadata I needed to take my first steps. Of course, my founder, the ICC, was the first to get involved and was, and still is, my main metadata supplier. But I must also mention the Departament de Medi Ambient and the CREAF research center, who accompanied me in those first and fundamental steps.

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Now, I need a Catalog While I was thinking about metadata, I also wondered how I would publicize them. I needed a catalog where information could be loaded and browsed through using different filtering criteria. By the end of 2002, I had found a product that could meet these requirements. I needed to improve the Geoportal and provide it with additional content and attractive services, including a catalog. In short, I had to give factual proof that I was viable and more than a simple idea. To meet my expectations, I needed more people to look after me, caregivers able to make improvements and implement new services, starting with the geo-visualization services (WMS Client). My childhood had begun.

A new, more mature and complete version of the Geoportal was released in early 2003. It included the aforementioned catalog and a standard viewer based on a WMS client. It was developed by my caretakers and allowed connection with the first WMS services served by the ICC. This institution then made a courageous decision: to publish its digital topographic data for free and offer these data sets on-line as a service of the IDEC. It was crucial for me at that stage of my development. Information such as orthophotos, coverages and topographic maps was then available to thousands of users, who are still using it today (ICC now has its own viewing and downloading services, independent from the IDEC, and hundreds of

thousands of requests are received every year). Of course, I remember the task of preparing the already-existing digital data for publication on continuous map servers as arduous and complex, but it was essential for my enterprise to succeed. These tasks could be completed thanks to funds received from the Secretaria de Telecomunicacions i Societat de la Informació for my launch and development. Without that support, I would probably not be writing my own story right now. I’m growing up… My childhood was marked by the continuous upgrading of the tools I offered (for instance, the new version, v.2, of MetaD and new releases of the viewer), as well as an ongoing enlargement of the number of metadata in the catalog and, to a lesser extent, the increasing number of map servers being integrated in the IDEC network. Those were my main concerns at this stage of my development. Several improvements in the catalog interface increased its usability and query efficiency, and new research criteria were added to the map viewer (cadastral reference, postal address, and toponymy). Moreover, step by step, I provided the system with capacity enough to accelerate answers to queries and guarantee its operability. It was also my responsibility to notify any organization eligible to participate in the initiative; and that is why I assumed the tasks of testing different WMS, explaining their attributes and advantages and providing a help manual (complementary to support personnel) for the installation of OGC

III. My childhood

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WMS to the new partners. Of course, I had problems in my first experiences with communication between WMS from different software providers, because although they all claimed to publish under the OGC standard, it was actually more complicated and we needed certain patches for the distributed system to interoperate. Beginning with sectoral SDI… From that early period, I also remember the first steps of a successful long-term strategy. It consisted of promoting sector-specific data infrastructures that, while keeping the particularities of their own fields, could nourish my entire structure. I’ll discuss this point in detail later on, but I must mention the first one, the IDE Costes (Coast SDI), that originated in a European project, EUROSION. By late 2003, up to 123 layers, provided by a dozen suppliers and as many as 15,000 metadata records, provided by 30 suppliers, and were available through the IDEC client. As I wanted to be known worldwide, I learned and talked about myself not only in my mother tongue, Catalan, but also in Spanish and English. All of the services I offered were available in any of these languages, through three different versions of the web portal. I walked through the rest of my childhood this way. Between 2004 and 2005, new services, and new releases of the previous services, were developed and the number of metadata providers and WMS increased. The principles of the SDI spread, and both institutional support and the number of collaborating

organizations grew. Some of the steps taken during that time finally bore their fruits in 2006, the year I identify with the beginning my youth.

In 2006, several events led to a turning point in my life. At that time, a number of the projects I had been nursing over the previous years were executed. Of course, it was not by chance, but there are times when life suddenly takes big steps. I’m going to talk about the big steps I took that year, typical of a young body, enthusiastic and feeling that I was starting to understand my life and goals. To summarize everything that happened to me, I’ll first list the events that marked my early puberty. Later on, I’ll describe some of them in greater detail:

An Act of the Parlament de Catalunya (Law of December 16, 2005) and its Regulations (July 2006) officially created the IDEC and provided legal recognition to me and the support center devoted to my development.

The sectoral SDI project IDE Local started in cooperation with the entity of the Catalan government responsible for electronic administration. IDE Local encouraged massive participation of local administrations in the regional SDI.

The sectoral SDI project IDE Univers began within a European project in collaboration with other partners in Italy and Greece, setting the basis

IV. My youth

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for the involvement of academic institutions.

For the first time, a system of performance indexes was used to evaluate me. Its main purpose was to monitor the accomplishment of the IDEC’s goals.

The IDEC collaborated with other regional SDI’s.

The IDEC participated in a new European project to create geo-processing services.

Some IDEC-based mash-up projects were implemented by public institutions.

IDEC started to be seen as a reference in Europe.

In addition to this list, I also want to mention in this preamble the final statistical results of my early activity (2006): Number of metadata records: - Metadata in Catalan 20.302

- Metadata in Spanish 20.235

- Metadata in English 16.513

- Total number 57.050

Number of producers:

- Public institutions 65

- Private organizations 11

- Total number 76

Map layers: 163

(85 layers provided by 23 municipalities)

Downloads:

Web Coverage Service (WCS) in 1.362

Geography Markup Language (GML) 415

GML Catalonia 475

I think this brief presentation of results and circumstances depicts the paths I took that year, which were already explored and operative. They might not have made for a complete change, but

they consolidated my existence; I was no longer a mere initiative, but a living, active, institutionalized and consolidated project, which had had been legally recognized and became a tool for governance. It should be noted that I opened that period with a new version of MetaD, v.3, with new data fields and improved usability, and also implementing the ISO 19139 standard. The creation and public release of various geo-processing services (geocoding, transforming UTM to geographic coordinates and vice versa, transforming pixel coordinates to UTM, etc.) was also significant. These new services responded to the aim of constantly creating new, useful and practical tools for the users of my resources. Using them, they could not only view and download information but also begin to manipulate the data. In those days, I had 55 users and more than 1,300 uses. Additionally, I increased my educational and informative activities and my presence at national and international events. IDEC was becoming a leader. The following years, 2007 and 2008, were fruitful in innovation, participation and new services, accelerating the activities started in 2006. Youth is an interesting, restless and exciting time, when everything seems fascinating. I was ready to experiment, and I sought recognition for my hard work. Now they know... and study me! In 2007, I was studied by the INSPIRE Unit of the JRC, responsible for the

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INSPIRE Directive. Implementing that Directive involved assessing the extent to which its development entailed benefits for member states. The impact of GI technologies has always been an understudied subject, with little research and few concrete results on the profitability of investments. This lack of references led the JRC to prepare a proposal for analysis. It was centered on studying the impact on small areas that would give some clear results, in spite of using the (few) previous assumption-based studies, which were rather theoretical and difficult to verify. They decided to focus their attention on the European regions where SDI’s implementation was more advanced. To do this, they published an international offer to perform an economic, social and political study in some European regions. This study had to be conducted by entities or organizations not responsible for SDIs, such as universities or research centers. Thus, I encouraged the Centre de Política de Sòl i Valoracions of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) to submit a proposal to the JRC offer. I was aware that I was likely to be the chosen study area. I was already well-known, and my continuous progress and numerous achievements had been acknowledged. That made me a valuable case for study. In the end, I was chosen to receive and execute the JRC’s order in front of the other two options presented thanks to a good methodological proposal presented by the UPC dealing with my situation, context and results and identifying known users of my resources. The details of the final study report are available to anyone interested on both the IDEC and INSPIRE websites. Even

today, it remains a benchmark document, not so much for its quality as the fact that it’s the only one of its kind developed to date. The conclusions of the study were brilliant, as they showed a clear economic impact of the existence and use of the resources I manage, and were not received with indifference. There were those who took these conclusions for granted from the beginning as the expected outcome. On the other hand, others kept refuting them, claiming that the scientific methodology was poor and the results exaggerated. About the whole controversy, I can only say that the results were not at all exaggerated, as they were derived from the fact that my resources are an instrument of productivity, as demonstrated in the usage cases described as examples in the study. The productivity gain can be assimilated, for example, to the reduced cost and time required to write this text with a word processor compared to writing it by hand. This initial change from handwork to the use of technologically-derived tools is immense and time-saving, and consequently productivity-enhancing. Over time, the intensity of the change decreases, but the consequences of passing from handwork to the use of IT are perfectly clear, and, in my opinion, cannot be disputed. This is precisely what the study revealed after analyzing what happened in certain local entities that had begun to use my resources. … And then INSPIRE arrived The most significant event of this period was probably the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive, translated in Catalonia into a

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parallel directive through the approval of Pla Cartogràfic de Catalunya (PCC) and the establishment of the Comissió de Coordinació Cartogràfica de Catalunya and its respective subcommittees. These regulations permitted a rational, consistent and long-term approach to various aspects of the GI, under the guidelines for strategies and methodologies provided by the Directive. I have been working with this committee, to whom I report regularly and occasionally submit specific proposals, such as the profiles for metadata or data-sharing policies. As for my objectives, however, the most significant landmark was the creation, by legal mandate, of the Registre Oficial de Cartografia (official cartography register), a tool of the PCC. This register is currently supported by the IDEC catalogue and required, as it still does today, a set of important adaptations to meet its objectives. This makes me feel much more useful, as my resources are being reused for other purposes, at a cost infinitely lower than starting from scratch. But I also recognize that it means an additional effort, as the permanent maintenance and enhancement leads me to overlook other aspects that require my attention. Reforms and adaptations

Concerning the rest of all my commitments, the activity remained intense, even frantic, in those days. The software MetaD had new releases, v.3.0.4 and v.3.0.5. By late 2008, the total number of downloads reached 1,500 and the product was used, aside from Catalonia, in Andalusia, the

Balearic Islands , Andorra, Italy, Greece, Ecuador, Colombia, etc. The catalog continued to change (see photo album). It was adapted to contain information about the life cycle of metadata and from the Registre Oficial de Cartografia. A new interface was created for the Registre. It was also prepared to contain service metadata, at first with a non-standard profile. By the end of 2008, 176 metadata services had been provided by 47 suppliers. That year, the accessions to the IDEC catalog were about 5,000 (80% in Catalan, 15% in Spanish and 5% in English), not considering accession to the Registre as direct. It was proven that the catalog had become a useful tool for many users. The number of metadata providers reached a hundred and they were mainly local institutions (2,500 metadata), universities (4,500 records) and the ICC (9,000 records). Further, within the activities of the IDE Univers project, mention must be made of the creation, of an open application to connect catalogs (CatalogConnector). This program at last allowed distributed access to several catalogs of metadata from different suppliers, with the only condition being that they meet appropriate standards. Thus, it was possible and easy to connect to catalogs from Catalan municipalities or from other regional IDE's, offering the user a range of interesting possibilities. And participation of local entities

as well

The sectoral SDI initiative IDE Local deserves special attention. As already mentioned, it started in 2006, promoted by and in collaboration with

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the consortium AOC (Open Administration of Catalonia). Its development in subsequent years was remarkable, and it even generated a new sub-initiative, IDE PlanUrb, promoting the on-line publication of municipal urban planning. To allow this, certain economic resources and full technical support were offered to data providers in case preexistent information was not suitable for publication. A user-customizable urban-layer viewer was also developed. By the end of 2008, IDE Local had reached the participation of 260 municipalities, which were using the resources offered by IDEC, mainly the customized viewer. About a hundred other local authorities were committed to the publication of their data and the creation of the related metadata. At that time, the total amount of records was 7,000, the number of active WMS services was 128 and the number of published layers reached 1,700. However, the most interesting and significant point of this initiative was the progressive building of a platform containing resources for local entities. These resources included fully customizable applications, which at that time included a viewer customizer (the most widely-used tool), an object editor, a metadata catalog customizer, a postal address geocoder and a password manager. Additionally, an initial application to allow maintenance and database updating, the beginning of something much bigger, was also provided by the local corporation, Localret. It was a WFS-T technology-based application that permitted local entities to directly update the databases located in the WMS of the organization.

The IDEC viewer continued its evolution, providing access to more than 2,000 geoinformation layers from a hundred suppliers. Meanwhile, the IDE Univers project, completed in late 2008, brought to my collaborative network over 5,000 metadata and 1,500 new viewable layers, accessible via WMS through 105 services, created by the 13 university departments involved. This was a key achievement. I kept on growing through this stage of my youth, between 2009 and 2010, although there were certain changes that could be highlighted. I began to ask myself some questions and have new concerns that would mark my course into maturity. Problems to be understood. A few

thoughts

I would say that 2009 started with several questions. “What is an SDI?”, “Who am I?”, “Am I like the others?”, “What does it mean?” However, these questions were not new. The definitions of a viewer, a geoportal, a web application, a Virtual Globe… had always been confusing; everything seemed to be the same thing. Those questions are meaningful. SDIs have become a world of bewilderment. I see many initiatives and projects that call themselves SDI, just like me, but who do not share my goals, my methods, my strategies or my policies. Even the requirements they respond to diverge from mine. The outfit looks identical, but beneath the clothes, things are different. Although that does not concern me directly, I don’t think it’s good. We need to reach an

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agreement on what an SDI is and is not. I have already made a proposal to this effect, to no avail. The fact is that, even today, it’s fashionable to be an SDI, and every project claims to be an INSPIRE SDI; there is a widespread obsession in the area of GI in "being" INSPIRE and "being" an SDI. A passage from my “secret diary”… By the end of 2009, the European project ESDI+ recognized me as one of the top 10 European sub-national SDIs, after a public call for applications and a few conferences in different countries where potential candidacies were submitted. The winner of the contest was to be chosen among the 10 pre-selected candidates at the final event. However, the jury declined to make a decision, as the candidates included many different types of SDIs, all of them valid and deserving of the award. Actually, as I remember, there were a few SDIs with web applications, including some GIS viewers with web applications. Others were applications restricted to a few members and not usable by the public, without a catalog or standard services, or SDIs that were merely web viewers with a single source of information, without a distributed information network, and similar products. We belonged to a different species, but no one wished to discourage any of these initiatives. Things have remained unchanged until now, mixing entities developed following the principles and orthodox definitions of SDI projects with other initiatives having nothing or little to do with them. Thus, there is a lingering, false perception that there are a multitude of SDIs, that they are a universal, ever-increasing phenomenon. In fact, the truth is that I

can see initiatives that require development and changes to their approaches. They are satisfied (and deceived) by their life and existence simply because no one discusses their DNA. All of this makes it difficult to analyze our evolution as a species, which faces an increasingly acute risk of stagnation, on a long-term basis. As I said, this does not directly concern me, and I only wish to express these thoughts. It’s not my intention to get involved in a crusade in defense of the fundamental spirit. That’s all. Who uses me? Aside from that, it was a time that remained productive, as I have already said. The number of participants, providers of information and metadata, users and new applications based on my resources increased. I continued improving my style and appearance, with a new design of the Geoportal, making it more modern and usable, giving the viewer better capabilities and functionalities, featuring more information sections on my website, etc. However, I must confess my lack of “marketing” ability to make myself known. I don’t think I’m the only one; other SDI’s also face the same problems. We are aware of this, not only because we believe it ourselves, but also because most of those who discover us are happily surprised and wonder why we aren’t better known and thus more widely used and considered. The stigma of being an "infrastructure", perceived as something intended to do other things, but nothing on its own, is minimizing and paralyzing. The magic word "marketing" often comes out in conversations with colleagues, but I have not yet found any “Google-style”

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product useful as a flag to make us widely known. Maybe that is just not our role; this is not for us. I don’t know, but I’ll think more about it, when possible. I’m not worried about growing; we are definitely doing that, as I have already said. But I would like this growth to be higher and faster. Indeed, I’m making efforts to be more easily usable and reachable. I don’t want to be repetitive, with another list of the numerical results of my activity (access, metadata, downloads, views, etc.) to justify the previous assertion about the incremental progress in almost all aspects of my business. I’ll reserve the details for the next section. Instead, I want to delve further into certain activities that, although they cannot be quantified, exemplify my progress. Progressing... First of all, I must mention the coming-of-age of IDE Litoral Geoportal, with the contribution of one of the institutions with the greatest credit in this area. We agreed that I would maintain the technological infrastructure (web, Geoportal, viewer, etc.), while he took in and managed the contents. The arrangement benefits both of us, and maintains the principle of specialization, where each party assumes the tasks at which they have the most expertise, as well as the principle of public resources reuse and sharing. Secondly, I want to state that I have always striven to implement specific applications based on what I am, which can be summarized as “interoperability". Thus, I’m happy to remember that during that period, we

launched a collaborative project between the Ajuntament de Barcelona (city council), the Port de Barcelona (local harbor) and the ICC. The purpose was to share cartographic databases, simplify information exchange among them, and update the ICC’s 1:5000 base map with the permanently-updating base map of the Port de Barcelona (with a working scale of 1:500). I want to explain this project in detail because it demonstrated the viability, though it was not without effort and difficulty, of connecting systems and automated processes. It made it possible to save a lot of time, and through collaboration, achieved higher quality information. Thanks to this project, the Port de Barcelona can now directly access the WFS of the Ajuntament de Barcelona and download or update the mapping for the urban area where their facilities are located whenever they want, making unnecessary the annual digital data transfer and the subsequent process of uploading the data in the Port de Barcelona GIS environment. Meanwhile, the Ajuntament de Barcelona is also allowed to connect to the port GIS to detect, and transfer to their own system the updates made by the Port. Geographic objects have the same resolution (1: 500) in both institutions. Finally, the ICC uses a data mining process to capture at will any change to the port mapping, processes the captured objects (through geometric and semantic transformations), and stores them in a database of observations to be included, once revised, in the 1:5,000 topographic database. The same system is now being tested and applied for maintenance of the 1:1,000 street map database, managed by ICC from the updates made in the

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databases administered by several municipalities. Self- control

Another remarkable accomplishment was the development of a system of indexes to measure the degree of fulfillment of my already-established goals. They were evidence of my approach to maturity: I was able to evaluate and correct myself. I initially applied this system between 2006 and 2009. Given its obvious usefulness and interest, I was asked to create a new generation of indexes for the following years of my life: 2010 to 2013. Anyone interested in learning more about this point, as well as some others I have mentioned, should take a look at my facility, the Geoportal, where they will find a more detailed description. http://www.geoportal-idec.cat/geoportal/eng/que-es/evolucio/ The catalog

I always thought about the catalog as my “cover letter”. It’s the cornerstone on which all my services rely, since the first interest of an SDI user is to know that a particular product exists, to know where to find it and how to access it (view, download). That’s what the catalog makes possible. However, the catalog had been the least intuitive, amusing and user-friendly of all my components. I was criticized for that, and I did everything I could to improve it. The catalog was the best tool of the SDI, but also the most misunderstood and criticized. Essentially, the (supposed) inefficiency of the catalog in

comparison with the (relative) efficiency of traditional search engines was pointed out. Thus, I worked hard to make its use easier and more intuitive. I tried to shorten the response delay of the catalog until it was as fast as a search engine. I simplified query interfaces. I indexed the contents of metadata records, etc. After that, all it took was to type a toponym or word in a plain-text window to start an efficient search and obtain results. I also included this searching window in my viewer, so that the user could incorporate into the viewer new information discovered through the catalog without leaving the work session. Furthermore, I wanted to export this utility to other viewers and applications. I also needed to incorporate semantic processes, but that had to wait a while. Up to that point, I was satisfied with what I was offering. Of course, some people longed for the metadata records to be displayed in Google, but I tried this option and found it impractical. So, there was no choice but to rely on the catalog and constantly improve it.

We need more organization as we grow. Monitoring my system

Over time, I gradually built a network of servers with spatial information. They gave me my present shape and condition: I’m now an interoperable and distributed information system. My muscles are the hundreds of physical servers containing almost five hundred services and several thousand geoinformation layers. In order to grow I needed to coordinate my movements, to prevent the failure of any of my muscles. Otherwise, I would not be able to assure a response to the requests.

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Once all of my WMS services were inventoried and cataloged, it was mandatory to monitor their functioning continuously. If necessary, I had to repair any damaged component to ensure that the entire distributed network would operate as if it was a centralized system, giving proper responses to the users. To that purpose, an application to monitor my components was developed. The application warned whenever something went wrong or did not work and sent a message to the responsible component, so that it was aware of the malfunctioning and able to fix it. But I also started to do other things. From that moment, I periodically informed each provider (component, in the terminology used) of any problems they had as well as the number of accesses to their WMS, at least through my access tools (I cannot monitor those not going through my client viewer). This way, providers realize to what extent their information is appreciated by users, impelling them to behave consequently and keep their service functioning properly. Towards an extension of my goals: An SDI for geospatial resources (sensors, PRG) 2010. I could feel myself reaching maturity. I did not come to this conclusion simply due to the passage of time. My behavior, without completely diverging from what was expected for that stage of my life, was beyond what I had planned. I can now advance the conclusion that makes me see it this way: I’m currently turning into a Geoinformation Resources Infrastructure. I’ll no longer

exclusively contain data and services; there are other types of geospatial resources I must include. I’ll talk more about them later on. I think my maturity began in 2011, almost without me realizing it. Maybe I should let others judge it, anyway. The reason for this attempt to explain my existence up to today is the excitement I feel when thinking that I’m one of many pieces helping to improve society and the institutions I belong to. It’s been a long time, 10 years, since my birth. In celebration of my achievement of full maturity it’s time to look back and evaluate my progress. Nowadays, we’re in a different period, one of constant change, and I want to keep offering services and resources that can contribute to the social and technological development of my country. I apologize for this emotional note, but the occasion calls for it. As I have previously done, let me present here a final summary of the achievements, accomplishments, efforts and thoughts I have accumulated during my life. They might reflect my ability to play the role I previously mentioned. This summary is both an exercise of evaluation and an exercise of humility, so that I can be judged. Also, I cannot forget that I owe my existence to the care and participation of many partners. I am who I am thanks to many others who wished to be me. My achievements have been my only nourishment, and

V. My maturity: close to my tenth birthday

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will continue to be so in the future. Even my failures have largely contributed to sustain me (I’ll also talk about them in this final chapter). I don’t exist as an independent entity, I depend on all of the other entities, and in a way, and I’m them. It was not difficult for me to understand this, I understood it from the beginning, and still believe it deeply.

But let’s stop rambling; I’ll now get on with the presentation of statistical results, as previously announced: Still rising: SDI activity data and results

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Catalan local entities participation in the project

Data Usage: In a survey of 100 visitors Geoportal (2008/2009) Total visitors: 90.

I have reached a critical mass, things are working reasonably well, and all the statistics are improving and growing.... What more can I ask for?

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Uses, extension, visibility... is it worthwhile? At maturity, there is usually a tendency to look back on the past, not only to remember good times but also to evaluate and compare our actual experience with “what if...” scenarios. One also becomes more critical, perhaps even a bit skeptical. It’s a time when you must preserve your appeal (usability) while continuing to target new goals to keep you active and motivated. We are pursued by the persistent question of whether everything we have done or are currently doing has been, or still is, worthwhile. There are good and bad days, though most of them are good. Getting old involves some sadness and nostalgia that we can only overcome with excitement about whatever the future will bring.

Now, I’ll answer whether it was worthwhile. Have my existences or actions improved my environment a bit? Have they benefited anyone? What extent? And from a more negative perspective: have I been an obstruction for anything? Have I hurt anyone? I wonder if I’m as good as I sometimes think. Why am I not more widely used? Why are there a lot of people I cannot reach? Why do some of them not even know me? Do I get my offer wrong, or take for granted a non-existent demand? Furthermore, I keep asking myself several questions to which I have no answer: Why am I always compared with Google? Am I a broad-audience tool or "simply" a professional-oriented infrastructure? Why am I obsessed with justifying myself from an economic point of view? Am I misleading users by

allowing them access to heterogeneous information that, although described in metadata, may not be suitable for their intended use, without them noticing? What indirect effects, if any, am I having on organizations and on inter-administrative relationships? Those are, of course, wide-scope questions that lack an immediate and clear answer. However, I guess they are also the product of maturity, whose effects I described above: It could all be summarized in a few questions: Am I useful? If I just disappeared, would there be any consequences? Would anyone miss me? I want to plan my future starting from these simple and profound questions. Otherwise I would be condemned to disappear. Are SDI dead? The INSPIRE obsession

So far, the process followed in developing the infrastructure has started with the appreciation of potential advantages of on-line data sharing. Thus, initiatives to encourage geodata providers to allow others to access their data are promoted. This involves an effort to inventory and catalog the resources, to create promotion strategies and develop tools to use the resources. This process has been strongly influenced by these aspects, taking them for its purpose. This means that most efforts have been focused on simply using the Internet platform to connect and make usable, within a distributed structure, the existing information resources from multiple

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public and private organizations. The emphasis has been, and still is, on the supply, and not the use of resources, with the consequent lack of effectiveness.

Of course, before infrastructure can be used, it must be made available. However, possibly due to the lack of reference examples, this first phase consumes the activities of the centers of the SDI’s. They concern themselves with providing data sources, catalogs, displays, etc.., but somehow neglect or ignore the consequences of this availability and the potential benefits of the full utilization of these resources.

But this is not the only current problem of the SDI’s. In my opinion, the most important problem is that we are an endangered species. Indeed, I cannot easily recognize other members of my species (see "A Passage from my Secret Diary").

I note that INSPIRE, which at first was received as a great opportunity to strengthen SDI initiatives throughout Europe, is causing an irrational passion. It has led to the abandonment of many of those initiatives for a supposed implementation of the Directive in their respective territories. INSPIRE intended to promote SDI's, to promote the participation of all organizations that can provide their assets to the infrastructure, to advance in the practical issues of data, system, department or regional interoperability, to agree on the application of standards, to avoid duplication of efforts, etc. Instead, everyone is talking about INSPIRE and obsessing over it. Now the only important thing is "being INSPIRE":

INSPIRE metadata, INSPIRE services, INSPIRE model, etc. The apparent efforts and capabilities of the legions of public workers from many agencies have turned to activities that are, in my opinion, ineffective: conferences, seminars, meetings, working groups and similar events, in order to analyze, adapt, prepare and plan INSPIRE implementation, of whose meaning and result, incidentally, almost nobody has a clear idea. Actually, I can understand that. It’s much easier to meet, speak, write and perform similar activities than to depend on oneself, or to fight for a project, the SDI, whose final result depends on the never-guaranteed participation of many partners. Achieving this goal, participation, demands a constant state of stress for the SDI’s responsible development body (in the case it exists and is accredited, since in many cases “SDI” is just a fashionable term applied to other titles, such as GIS services, mapping areas or many others).

In general, there is not a shared perception of having massive network participation, of being an actual infrastructure (web application development is more highly regarded than construction of infrastructure), of creating common projects, etc. Therefore, it should be no surprise that I express my concern about our survival. But this is something we will see in time. For now, I’m concerned about my future, something I deserve and I rely on.

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From geographic information

infrastructure to georesources

infrastructure

Innovate, innovate...

Interoperability, common working platform, sensors, voluntary information... those are the new ingredients to use for new ideas and projects. At first, SDIs were designed as tools for discovery, access (viewing, downloading) and processing of geo-information and geo-services, distributed in web servers from different sources. But the truth is that there are some data and services for which SDIs have never been considered, although they may also provide great value to the discipline of GI: satellite images, aerial photographs, historical maps, etc. In the field of geo-services, the range of final-user oriented applications (not processes) to manipulate and use geo-information are also a great incentive for the use of data resources provided by SDI to unqualified users. Thus, beyond the geo-spatial data and processing geo-services, there are other sources of geo-information (information and technology) that should be welcomed in the development of SDI’s, and which should evolve into geo-information resource infrastructures, including data services, applications, images (Earth observation, aerial photographs), sensors, data access services, and,

probably, crowd sourcing data and tools. Geoinformation Resources Infrastructure: Data, Services, Applications, Images, Sensor Data, collaborative platforms, models, photos, etc.

I’m aware that, like any system or organization, I’m condemned to collapse, to extinction. I also know that my only chance, and it won’t last forever, is innovation. I must adapt to the environment, mutate in the appropriate direction, at least as far as I know and am able to. Growing, no matter which direction, is key. But why can’t growing be an innovation in itself? Not everyone is able grow at will, but I am. It’s a solution that I’m implementing successfully. To do something different, more specific, less massive but with a largely technological and innovative approach, is, perhaps, the quintessence of innovation. I’m working on that, too. Not everything is permitted (or how to guide the user about quality) In relation with these service improvements, I think it’s essential that I move from a situation where "everything is permitted", in which I aimed for maximum participation (as many participants and as much information as possible) to another situation in which, without renouncing that, I’ll be able to filter results by quality, origin or other criteria. This will probably be appreciated by the users. I’m thinking, for example, about creating an independent thematic SDI for information provided by the government. This information, arising from the exercise of the government

VI. The future

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duties and responsibilities, will be an example of quality guarantee and updating. Of course, the user should keep the possibility to find thousands of layers, from other sources, whose quality and degree of updating, which can be equally high, has to be assumed or determined by the interested user. The Administration website (for example, a web portal for the Pla Cartogràfic de Catalunya) should, instead, be understood as the one containing the most reliable and updated information from public entities. Without a doubt, there will be other options to ensure the correspondence between what users are looking for and what SDI providers can offer. This remains an unexplored field, which, in any case, cannot be explored without the existence of a great amount of data, that is, without the massive presence of products currently available through the IDEC website. Coming years

I still have a long life to live. The fact that I’m writing this autobiography does not mean that I’m getting ready to leave the scene. On the contrary, it has been a useful incentive to target new challenges, rethink some positions, and, in particular, renew my excitement about what’s going to happen from now on. At the same

time, although flexibility is, at least for me, a virtue, there are some central axes of my life’s road map that should be kept clear. My strategic guidelines should be based on certain benchmarks:

Evolving from the accumulation of resources to their dissemination and use.

Creating a platform of Geoinformation resources, intended as a governance platform and regarded both as source and engine for my transformation. Its mission is to improve accessibility, increase the number of applications and integrate new resources (sensors, images).

Developing new thematic SDI and Geoportals (WebSensors, images, aerial photos, geology, cartography officer, Inspire, and others).

Integrating new participative technologies and crowd sourcing resources.

Developing specific projects based on interoperability.

Who knows? I may have to extend this biography in a few years...

Tempus fugit

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PHOTO ALBUM

The Geoportal interface

2003 2010

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The viewer interface

2003 2004

2006 2007

2008 2010

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The Catalog interface

2004 2006

2008 2010

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My Thematic Websites

Geoportal for sensors (2010) Geolocal (Local SDI v.2, 2010)

Geoportal for IDE Univers (2008) Geoportal for Earth Observation SDI

(2011)

Geoportal Ifor DE Litoral (v.2, 2010) Tool’s menu of the PRG