More information and the final program of the workshop can be found at the workshop webpage. Also the workshop presentations and results are available on this webpage.

The central aim of this workshop is to initiate the definition of a renewed Spatial Data Infrastructure Research Agenda, incorporating both technical and non-technical perspectives and research challenges. The workshop will take place on Tuesday 12 June 2018, in Lund (Sweden).

The ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’ workshop would like to offer SDI researchers an opportunity to share their research and formulate the SDI research agenda. Researchers interested in presenting their research at the workshop are asked to submit a short abstract of their research project by 30 March, 2018. For more information on the workshop, please download the call for abstracts or visit the workshop webpage.

]]> 2017/12/13/governance-of-open-sdis-in-europe/ Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:31:59 +0000 http://kcopendata.bk.tudelft.nl/?p=1281 Read More...]]> A book chapter on the ‘Governance of open spatial data infrastructures in Europe‘ by Glenn Vancauwenberghe en Bastiaan van Loenen was published in the book ‘The Social Dynamics of Open Data’.  The chapter provides an analysis of how several European member states have been dealing with the governance of their open spatial data infrastructures since the adoption of the INSPIRE Directive in 2007.  In recent years several countries and public administrations started to make a shift towards the establishment of a more ‘open’ spatial data infrastructure, in which also businesses, citizens and non-governmental actors are considered as key stakeholders and beneficiaries of the infrastructure. This move towards more open spatial data infrastructures also created additional challenges related to the governance of the SDI, as new and additional governance approaches and instruments had to be implemented. In order to engage different stakeholder groups, including data users and producers outside the public sector, and take into account their needs and requirements, the scope of traditional governance structures, mechanisms and processes had to be expanded.

The book ‘The Social Dynamics of Open Data‘ is a collection of peer reviewed papers presented at the 2nd Open Data Research Symposium (ODRS) held in Madrid, Spain, on 5 October 2016. The objective of the Open Data Research Symposium and the subsequent collection of chapters published here is to build a strong evidence base on why and how open data is valuable. This base is essential to understanding what open data’s impacts have been to date, and how positive impacts can be enabled and amplified. Consequently, common to the majority of chapters in this collection is the attempt by the authors to draw on existing scientific theories, and to apply them to open data to better explain the socially embedded dynamics that account for open data’s successes and failures in contributing to a more equitable and just society.

In their chapter on business models for geographic information (GI), Glenn Vancauwenberghe, Frederika Welle Donker, and Bastiaan van Loenen examine the process of creating value from geographic information using the foundational format of business model theory. The chapter investigates how organizations use a broad variety of models to create, deliver, and capture value, and contributes to the understanding of the diversity of business models of organizations dealing with GI.

Glenn Vancauwenberghe also co-authored a book chapter titled ‘Performance Measurement of Location Enabled e-Government Processes: A Case Study on Traffic Safety Monitoring’. This chapter presents a case study of traffic safety monitoring as an application of location-enabled e-government processes is described. A qualitative method was developed and applied to estimate the impact of location enablement of e-government processes on system performance. Results show that the performance in terms of time, costs, and quality are negatively influenced by lack of upstream data harmonization and difficulties in the handling of the sharing agreements.

Lorenzo presented his research on Balancing the Right to Data Protection with Open Data. The central research question of his PhD research is ‘How may the interests of the right to data protection be balanced with the interests underlying open data regulations?’. His research so far shows that open data is not a right in itself, but access to and re-use of data are rights. Lorenzo also revealed the general incompatibility between data protection and open data, and shows that in most cases data protection trumps open data.

The central topic of Agung’s PhD research is ‘4D Open Spatial Information Infrastructure Supporting Participatory Urban Planning Monitoring’. His Ph.D. project will focus on how to improve spatial information sharing to support participatory urban planning monitoring by implementing two-ways direction and open data principles. His research will cover policy aspects (data governance for Open SII), technical aspects (specifications o Open SII and spatial data management) and implementation aspects (how different dimensions of spatial information could improve participatory urban planning monitoring).

On Monday 18 September, participants were welcomed by professor Willem Korthals Altes,  head of the section Geoinformation and Land Development within the Faculty of Architecture. Joep Crompvoets, Secretary-General of EuroSDR, gave a presentation of the mission, structure and activities of EuroSDR and provided an introduction to the workshop. The keynote presentation of Thorhildur Jetzek (Activity Stream) provided some interesting insights and research results on the process of creating value from open data. The final presentation on Monday was from Frederika Welle Donker (TU Delft), who presented the results of the EuroSDR survey on the effects of open data on the business models of NMCAs. After the presentations, several discussions sessions were organized in which participants could share their view and experiences on the sustainability of open data, the impact of open data, and the challenges of implementing open data.

On Tuesday 19 September, the workshop started with a wrap up of the findings and conclusions of the first day. Bastiaan van Loenen (TU Delft) presented some theoretical perspectives and research results on open data business models. Glenn Vancauwenberghe (TU Delft) gave a presentation on Open SDIs, in which the topic of open data business models was placed in a wider context of open spatial data infrastructures and some key challenges at national and European level to implement these open SDIs were discussed. The workshop ended with an open discussion on the national and pan-European challenges and future steps.

All presentations and other relevant documents can be found here. See for more information also the website of EuroSDR.

In their book chapter entitled ‘Exploring the Emergence of Open Spatial Data Infrastructures: Analysis of Recent Developments and Trends in Europe’ Vancauwenberghe and van Loenen provide an analysis of the measures and solutions implemented in four European countries to make their national spatial data infrastructures open to businesses, citizens and other stakeholders. The analysis shows that the move towards more open spatial data infrastructures can mainly be seen in the increased availability of geographic data and spatially enabled services to citizens, businesses and other parties.

Glenn Vancauwenberghe was moderator of two discussion sessions on the topic of open geospatial data. In these sessions, both providers and users of open geospatial data shared their views on the status of open data In Flanders. While the data providers mainly talked about barriers that still hinder them to make their data available, the users explained how open data already helped them in developing and providing services and products. Most participants in the discussion sessions agreed with the need for more collaboration in the open data ecosystem: collaboration among data providers at different administrative levels, but especially collaboration between data providers and data users. Other suggested approaches and instruments for improving the Flemish open data ecosystem were the definition of high value ‘local’ datasets and the use of quality labels to clearly indicate the quality of a particular dataset.