Transcript Document

Risto Päivinen, Andreas Schuck and Tim Green
NEFIS - Network for a European
Forest Information Service
QLK5-CT-2002-30638
JRC Ispra - 29 June 2005
About data and information
 Is more data needed or have we reached information overload?
• Is some important data/information missing or of too low accuracy?
 Are current resources/information fully utilised and used efficiently?
• Lack of data/information is not necessaryly the problem but their use and
application
 Do we know where to find what information/data?
• Users incl. decision makers are often not aware of existing information or do not
use it
 How accessible is existing information really?
 In which way should information and data be made available?
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EFIS study 2000-2002
carried out by EFI consortium for the
Joint Research Centre / Space Applications Institute under
Contract No. 17186-2000-12 F1ED ISP F.
to support
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EFICS regulation (UE/CEE No. 1615/89).
EFICS STUDY 1996-1997
What is NEFIS?
A 5th Framework Programme Accompanying Measure of the
European Commission (QLK5-CT-2002-30638) 2002-2005
The general objectives are maximising the value of existing data
and databases by:
coordinating efforts to create forest information systems and
services
supporting development of harmonised standards and procedures
for data provision
increasing the usability of available data and databases
NEFIS partnership
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European Forest Institute
European Commission, DG JRC, Institute for
Environment and Sustainability – Land
Management Unit
International Union of Forest Research
Organisations
Dresden University of Technology – Forest
Biometrics and Computer Sciences
Frauenhoffer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der
angewandten Forschung e.V.
Finnish Forest Research Institute
Inventaire Forestier National
Danish Forest and Landscape Research
Institute – Dept. of Forestry
Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet – Dept. of
Forest Resource Management and Geomatics
University of Greenwich – School of
Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Regione Dell’Umbria – Servizio
Programmazione Forestale
Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali
Centre Tecnologic Forestal de Catalunya –
Forest Policy and Rural Development Dept
Hungarian State Forest Service (SFS)
Federal Research Centre for Forestry and
Forest Products, BFH
20.8.2004
Specific tasks
1) Review the state of the art in the technical development of
information services
2) Publish a follow-up version of the currently available EFIS prototype
3) Develop metadata standards and controlled vocabularies
4) Suggest unified and operable methods for communication between
different Internet-based forest information service activities
5) Test the EFIS using regional, national and international data sets
6) Evaluate the service from the users’ and data providers’ perspectives
7) Develop strategies for development of the service
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Project Timetable
Background
Data available from multiple
sources on the Internet
Refining the work plan and
agreement on data input
GFIS
WP 2: NEFIS Metadata and Controlled
Vocabularies Standards
Partner 3, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 10, 11, 12, 13
WP 4: Data preparation and provision
Partner 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13
Provider 1
Provider 2
Provider 3
WP 5: Evaluation of (1) metadata standards, (2)
process of data provision and (3) the advanced
GFIS/EFIS system
Partner: 4, 1, 5, 10
Provider n
Advanced
EFIS
WP: 6 Links with Commission Services, dissemination of results and follow-up activities
Partner: 2, 1, 3, 4, and 10
EFIS
Metadata and controlled
vocabularies standards (WP2)
Objectives
 develop forest metadata standards and controlled
vocabularies for the data sets provided by the NEFIS partners
based on a generic standard
 Suggestion for a Forest Markup Language (FML)  User guidelines and documentation
NEFIS Metadata schema based on DCMI metadata
element set. NEFIS modifications ()
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Controlled vocabularies
NEFIS Themes and NEFIS Terms
Keyword lists
developed for 12
themes. The lists
were developed
further (e.g. to include
definitions,
equivalents in other
languages) for the
themes in bold
Forest inventory (incl. growth and yield)
Forest health
Silviculture (incl. forest nurseries)
Vegetation (or forest or land) types
Non-wood goods and benefits
Forest operations
Forest fires
Forest products and trade flows
Rural development
Forestry institutions
Maps and geo-referenced data
Field experiments
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Forest Markup Language (FML)
The purpose of FML is to provide the forest
community with an extensible and flexible rules
with which to express its metadata standard; for
use in data sharing, analysis and archiving
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UML description of an extended
EFIS
UML (Unified Modelling Language) is a notation for
modelling information system architecture
Storylines for example use cases were written and use case
diagrams developed from these storylines. The storylines are
available in the NEFIS KnowledgeBase
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UML (Unified Modelling Language) is a
technique for modelling information
system architecture
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KnowledgeBase – general
http://www.nefis-kb.info/
The KnowledgeBase:
 Allow hierarchical access to information from general descriptions to
implementation details
 Information and document handling system for recording:
• outputs from NEFIS WPs
• other forest information systems/services development initiatives (e.g.
Global Forest Information Service; European Forest Information Service)
and other relevant projects
• relevant software resources and documentation
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KnowledgeBase – Structure and Design
The KnowledgeBase:
structured repository for deposit, storage and access of information and metadata
relevant to forest information systems, with emphasis on NEFIS
Main headings are:
Data providers, design, forest policy and processes, knowledge representation,
markup languages, projects, reference, software
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Data preparation and data
provision (WP4)
Objectives
to identify the datasets (sub-national, national and
international) for input to the EFIS
to prepare metadata records using the proposed
metadata schema
to provide and prepare sample datasets available
through the EFIS system
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Metadata and data
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Evaluation (WP5)
The evaluation addressed the following aspects:
Metadata and metadata guidelines on their operability and applicability for
describing datasets
Keyword list and thesaurus (extra topic within the metadata evaluation)
Data rights and data rights management
The information needs and user’s expectations towards potential capabilities
of a NEFIS
The extent to which NEFIS can serve as a harmonised electronic information
system for periodical data reporting/delivery to the Commission services,
national, pan-European and international organisations
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Evaluation
The evaluation was undertaken using standardised questionnaires
Metadata and metadata guidelines
data rights and data rights management
user needs and user expectations (VTK)
And expert statements
Metadata and metadata guidelines (Prof. Dr. Keith Rennolls
(Greenwich), Dr. Jarmo Saarikko (Metla))
Keyword list and thesaurus (Renate Prüller (IUFRO), Gillian Petrokofsky
(CAB International))
Data rights and data rights management (Prof. Dr. Risto Päivinen (EFI),
Andreas Schuck (EFI), Tim Green (EFI))
Electronic system for periodic reporting (Prof. Dr. Michael Köhl (UHH),
Aljoscha Requardt (UHH))
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Links with Commission services,
dissemination of results and followup activities (WP6)
Objectives
to promote awareness amongst forest community and other
data users
to ensure NEFIS will evolve in an integrated manner with
other Community networks
to demonstrate the system
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Demonstration Package
The Demonstration Package consists of:
Resource Discovery (RD) in which the proposed NEFIS metadata
schema is implemented
New Visualisation Toolkit (VTK) functionalities, including:
• support of spatial time series data;
• tools for dynamic aggregation of grid (raster) data;
• some new visualisation techniques
Data retrieval: Implementation of simple system for retrieval of data
from data tables from distributed and remote sites, collation of the data,
and processing into a format that can be used by the VTK
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Example visualizations
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THANK YOU!
JRC Ispra - 29 June 2005