GeoPlatform FuturesDecember 7, 2016Harry NiedzwiadekGeoPlatform Program Manager for Image Matters LLC

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Key Opportunities

Make it easier for users to find what they need and put it to use

Enhance asset sharing (minimize redundancy), thus reducing associated costs

Improve maintainability, scalability, performance, and reliability

Make it easier for asset owners to manage their assets and monitor how they are performing

Provide improved tools for rich, shared community experiences

Address system-of-system issues and opportunities that don’t arise at the enterprise-level or

component-level

Towards the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) goal of

Shared National Data and Services

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GeoPlatform as a National Geospatial Information and Service Hub….

Users can quickly

find GeoPlatform

resources of

interest

Concept of Operations

GeoExplorationServices

GeoUnderstanding Services

GeoSocial Exchange Services

GeoAsset Management

Services

GeoInfrastructure Services

Users can exploit

GeoPlatform

resources to quickly

produce & share

value-add results

User communities

can share timely

information about

maps, locations,

subjects & topics

Asset owners can

assess health &

status of their

assets

Curators can

manage shared,

open content

Asset

administrators can

manage their assets

Asset owners can

obtain secure,

managed hosting

services

Developers can

directly access

GeoPlatform

services for their

applications

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General Users

Customize community content

Share common tools

Map Galleries

Marketplace

Quickly find just the right data for my need

Answer key questions about provenance and fitness of data

Quickly make and share a map

Serving the needs of our key stakeholders

Community Users

Asset Owners Application Developers

How are my assets performing?

How are my assets being used?

Quickly find just the right data for my need

Quickly find just the right service for my need

Are the services reliable? How reliable?

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Some of the key challenges that lie ahead

Must have a disciplined, robust approach to attaining the right architecture foundations

Improvements are needed to enhance the common language and approach for Open data

and Open services…. We’re not quite there with openness and interoperability

Need to make it easier for users to quickly find what they need and put it to use

Need better tools for operating in a system-of-systems context

Taking shared resource interoperability and usage to the next level…

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There are many shades of “open”

Open has many meanings, and often serves selective agendas

Open data and services are often riddled with proprietary and specialization constraints, which give

false hope of ease of access and use

Open tends to mean discoverable, accessible and interoperable… but the devil is in

the details

Open must lower technology, cost and organizational barriers, while fostering greater

harmonization, growth, change and market acceptance

Historically, Open has proven to be a major way to drive costs down and increase

variety and innovation… but only if implemented correctly

GeoPlatform must employ a consistent, autonomous means of interoperating and

communicating!

GeoPlatform Approach: Adopts a robust definition of “Open” that achieves interoperability, extensibility, and flexibility objectives, while increasing resource sharing (reusability), market acceptance, and technology platform-independence and diversity.

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What do we mean by open?

All resources in the GeoPlatform ecosystem are discoverable, accessible and interoperable

GeoPlatform data and metadata are well described and unambiguous

In accordance with content standards

The meaning, significance and relevance of data/metadata are clear and consistent to users

Not just human-understandable, but machine-understandable too … the key to automation

Standards must address schema, syntax, and semantic concerns

Service Application Programmer Interfaces (API) are clear and consistent to other software

In accordance with service standards

The meaning, significance and relevance of API protocols are clear and consistent

Must be machine-understandable… the key to automation

The right actionable information is communicated through human-computer interfaces

Answers key questions for users

Context-sensitive

We need a common language and approach for system-of-systems resource sharing

The main shortfall we face in GFY 2017

“Open” means unambiguous access and communications between GeoPlatform assets and the actors we serve (both users and software).

The main shortfall we face in GFY 2017

GFY 2018 and beyond

GFY 2017 focus

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Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, developed this 5-star scheme for Linked Open Data

Level of Openness

Description Benefits

★Make your stuff available on the Web (whatever format) under an open license1

O.K. It's great to have the data accessible on the Web under an open license (such as PDDL, ODC-by or CC0), however, the data is locked-up in a document. Other than writing a custom scraper, it's hard to get the data out of the document.

★★Make it available as structured data (e.g., Excel instead of image scan of a table)2

Splendid! The data is accessible on the Web in a structured way (that is, machine-readable), however, the data is still locked-up in a document. To get the data out of the document you depend on proprietary software.

★★★Use non-proprietary formats (e.g., CSV instead of Excel)3

Excellent! The data is not only available via the Web but now everyone can use the data easily. On the other hand, it's still data on the Web and not data in the Web.

★★★★Use URIs to denote things, so that people can point at your stuff4

Wonderful! Now it's data in the Web. The (most important) data items have a URI and can be shared on the Web. A native way to represent the data is using RDF, however other formats such as Atom can be converted/mapped, if required.

★★★★★ Link your data to other data to provide context5Brilliant! Now it's data, in the Web linked to other data. Both the consumer and the publisher benefit from the network effect.

Towards a world of unambiguous semantically-grounded Linked Open Data that adds rich context and meaning to shared data.

Part 1: Achieve 4/5 ★ Open Data

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Part 2: Achieve 4/5 ★ Open Services

Level of Openness

Description Benefits

★

Proprietary service is available on the Web through a licensed (for fee), non-standard interface

O.K. It's nice to have service on the Web, however, the licensed and proprietary nature of the interface hinders interoperability and widespread adoption.

★★

Proprietary service is available on the Web through a publicly available, non-standard interface

Splendid! It's great to have a publicly available service on the Web, however, the proprietary nature of the interface hinders interoperability and widespread adoption.

★★★

Service is available on the Web through a publicly available, candidate open standard interface (i.e., a newstandard with public support and tangible adoption)

Excellent! The barriers to interoperability have been lowered by the use of a candidate open standard. (This stage is a necessary step in evolving the platform and getting others to use it.)

★★★★

Service is available on the Web through a publicly available, open standard interface that enforces open data policies

Wonderful! The barriers to interoperability have been greatly reduced by the use of an well-established, adopted open standard, from a credible standards organization.

★★★★★

Open source service is available on the Web through a publicly available, open standard interface that enforces open data policies

Brilliant! Not only is the service open and interoperable, but its source code is available for those whose wish to integrate and tailor this reusable service for their needs.

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OPEN DATA ACCESS LAYEROpen Data Services

Optimized for extensibility, flexibility, and ease of integration

Achieving a robust GeoPlatform architecture

DATA-SERVICE INTEGRATION LAYER

APPLICATION INTEGRATION LAYER

PROCESS INTEGRATION LAYEROpen Analytic

Services

SHARED DESKTOP & MOBILE APPLICATIONS

Open App Components

Unified Models

APPS

Open, Plug-in Architecture from Top-to-Bottom

Shared applications that leverage underlying open components and models

Shared open application components (e.g., map viewer, workflow manager)

Shared open functions and processes (e.g., layer recommender, metadata harvester, etc.)

Shared, unified data models and mapping-transform services (e.g. Open Map)

Shared data sources with common data integration framework (e.g. OGC services)

This approach improves interoperability, adaptation, and component / data reuse.

Key Architecture Tenets: Open, tiered, modular, extensible, service-based, distributed, scalable, intelligent, secure, maintainable, ease-of-use, and platform-independent.

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Achieving a robust service experience

Build out core services for our SaaS/PaaS/IaaS framework

Registry+ – vastly improved search, navigation and exploration

Open Layer – consistent access and use of data layers (technology-agnostic)

Open Map – consistent access and use of maps and map galleries (technology-agnostic)

Build better tools for managing our assets

Tracking and monitoring assets

Enhance problem/issue detection and resolution

Lay foundations for secure, reliable, and scalable services in the Cloud

Taking advantage of shared infrastructure

Achieving a consistent, robust approach to Quality of Service (QoS)

Make it easier for people to find the right resources for the right task

Need to vastly improve search

Need to vastly improve machine-to-machine operations (greater automation)

Towards high-performance web services for the nation’s core geospatial assets

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Enhancing user productivity

Enhance search, navigation and exploration

Create a consistent, reliable gateway to the nation’s vast ecosystem of distributed

geospatial assets

With hundreds of thousands of choices, find just the right data / service for the task

at hand

Enhance GeoPlatform workflows

Greater workflow automation

Assisting users with “smarter services” (e.g., guide and recommend)

Less emphasis on copying data… more emphasis on sharing rich data and

services from authoritative sources

Easing the burden on users… Making the user experience more efficient

and effective

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Our #1 user productivity enhancement objective:Helping users find just the right data for the right task

Current metadata answers who, what, when, where and how questions

Users also need their why questions answered

For what purpose was this data created? Are there limitations I (the user) should know about?

Is there meaningful context that enhances my understanding of the data’s purpose and fitness-for-use?

What is the scope of the data? Key subjects, themes, and topics?

What is the intended audience for the data?

What can other users tell me about this data?

The Knowledge Graph ensures that CBO resources are both human-understandable and

machine-understandable… it’s shared geospatial knowledge that augments data and metadata

Wrapping GeoPlatform Common Business Objects (CBO) with a Knowledge Graph

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Significance of a Knowledge Graph

DOC

Word – an isolated symbolEntity – a significant lexicon

depicting

Mexico

Event of Interest X

United States

Person of Interest

Open Map of Interest

Place of Interest Y

involvinglives-In ally-Of

contained-In

located-In

Concepts w/ unambiguoussemantics + context

Symbolic Lexical Conceptual

Knowledge Graph

A Knowledge Graph surrounds data + metadata (any geospatial resource) with structured knowledge (i.e., rich semantics and context ), and distinguishes important system concepts (e.g., Open Map) for vast improvements in sharing, discovery and human and machine understanding.

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For Example: GeoPlatform’s Open Map

Map Parts

Map Knowledge Graph (5 ★ Linked Open Data)

Purpose

designed-For

Scope

Social Content

Fitness-For-use

has-CommunityOpenMap

has-Context has-Utility

Map Context

Legend

Annotations

Style / Symbol

Layer 1

Layer 2..Layer n

has-Content

The Map Knowledge Graph adds rich semantics and context (i.e., unambiguous meaning, significance and relevance) to an Open Map. Subject Matter Experts (map-makers) create this shared “tradecraft” information so that others can easily discover just the right map that fits their need. A community also contributes rich social content, making the Open Map a valuable social object in shared experiences.

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Why Semantics? … Its Role in the GeoPlatform

Because semantics are fundamentally important to interoperability and sharing

So that every core GeoPlatform Common Business Object is unique and unambiguous in meaning, significance and relevance

So there is a common vocabulary for our domain(s)

So that each resource is resolvable as a shared Web resource (URI)

So that related resources are linked in a consistent, meaningful way

So we are more consistent and coherent in our interpretation and use of shared resources

So we have a consistent Open standards stack for our framework, from top to bottom (OSI, W3C, IETF, OGC)

Employ a common data and service model framework throughout the platform

So the definitions and meanings of resources are consistently machine-encoded structured knowledge that are machine-understandable (i.e., consumable and understood by service reasoning logic)

So we can begin to reason about resources… this is key to greater automation

Semantics constitute the last rung in GeoPlatform’s interoperability ladder

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Focus on using semantics to vastly improve resource discovery, sharing, and automation

Use common model and vocabulary to unambiguously describe first class GeoPlatform’s Common

Business Objects (ground our core concepts)

Enhance API protocols to improve GeoPlatform service consistency, coherence, mediation, and

interoperability… the key to greater automation

Improve resource context built into GeoPlatform resource fabric, relating resources to one another (i.e.,

as Linked Open Data)… enhances context for improved resource understanding

Adds tradecraft descriptions and important missing usage context about GeoPlatform resources, which

improves data usage consistency and fitness-for-use

Enhances service automation (machine reasoning) with better algorithms for recommendation,

detecting patterns and indicators, etc.

Don’t try to overuse semantics, for example, re-factor all metadata and data… Semantics

should be used to augment data and metadata with a “knowledge layer”

Stay in the deterministic realm; Avoid questionable probabilistic realm

A Practical Approach to Semantics for GeoPlatform

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Easier to find the data and services I need

Enhances service automation through improved machine-understanding and use of GeoPlatform resources

Leads to fewer copies of data and associated services; Greater reliance on authoritative sources on the Web (in the Nation’s Cloud)

Reduces system-of-systems lifecycle costs with reusable machine-understandable services

The Benefits of Semantics for GeoPlatform

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Better tools for operating in a system-of-systems context

Timely, effective collaboration for key national problems, challenges and events… enhancing

community collaboration

Improved ways to meeting users needs (e.g. analytics that better explain or recommend)

More effective portfolio and resource management tools

Means for stakeholders to publish their content once and have it accessed from anywhere

Means for monitoring and proactively managing assets

Integrating geospatial with non-geospatial (e.g. social, economic, business data)… integrating

geospatial as a commodity into the fabric of important national discussions

We can begin to think about answering more complex questions that require cross-agency, multi-

stakeholder collaboration

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harryn@imagemattersllc.com