Agi 09 Soapbox Slides 1 Spatial

Do we all speak the same language (or something similar)?

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS• Who are we communicating with? • Do we understand their needs?• What are we both trying to achieve? • Is there consensus and agreed scope?

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• Is it important that we all use the same language?

• You say potato, I say potahto• Spatial, geospatial, digital

geographic information, geoinformation, location based services, volunteered geographic information

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

TLAs to SLAs• SIG – French for GIS or a

Special Interest Group?• VGI• BSI, CEN, OGC, ISO• WFS, WMS, WPS• SDI, NSDI, GSDI• UML, XML, GML, KML

• Search results for SDI = 8,960,000 in Google

• Ranging from the Steel Deck Institute to Scottish Development International to Silt Density Index and Spatial Data Infrastructures

• Requires context

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• What is context?• It requires shared vocabulary

of the same concept/domain• Through ontologies?

– Formal concept to model a domain/classify data

– Type of objects that exist together with relationships and properties

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• Highway, motorway, autobahn, autoroute

• Engineering context?– Concrete, tarmac,

foundations• Transport context?

– Number of lanes, direction of flow

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• Within context what is meaning?• Highway, motorway, autobahn,

autoroute, autostrada • Are these the same things?• What defines a motorway?

– Connected chunks of roads, same direction flow, same name or number, M25, M4

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• Need to use motorway in a consistent manner

• This requires semantics – understanding data meaning

• Rules-based languages help• Modelling - OCL, UML, SWRL• SQUIRL- Spatial Quality and

Integration Rules Language

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• Rules help with consistency• Provide common

understanding• There are data consistency

implications for the UK Location Programme

• INSPIRE classifications provide some examples

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• A hydrographical node transforms from code “1” (‘source’ in EA data) to value “spring” in INSPIRE

• Code “3” (‘junction’ in EA data) to the value “bifurcation” or “confluence” in INSPIRE (depends on how many rivers connected to it, how many flowing in and out.)

THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• Based on work across several INSPIRE themes these mappings are important

• Ensures the local schema can be mapped ‘as is’ against the INSPIRE data specifications

• Necessary during schema transformation and quality validation operations

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THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• As the volume of data increases exponentially it is becoming more and more important that we all speak the same language• This has a major effect on the ability to integrate and transform data from a quality perspective• It will also save time, money and reduce conflict or frustration

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THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

• We speak your language if you need solutions for geospatial data integration, transformation and quality control

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