rationale of pilots. evaluation set-up and test...

This project has received funding from the European Union’s

Seventh Programme for research, technological development and

demonstration under grant agreement No 603824.

Linked Open Data for environment

protection in Smart Regions

Rationale of pilots.

Evaluation set-up and test

metrics

Deliverable D5.1 :: Public

Keywords: Use cases, scenarios, outcomes, results, overview, reasons, options, key risks, benefits expected…

D5.1 Rationale of the Pilot. Evaluation set-up and test metrics SmartOpenData project (Grant no.: 603824)

Version 1.0 of 58 © SmartOpenData Consortium 2014

Table of Contents

Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 5

1 Introduction........................................................................................................................ 6

1.1 Rationale of the pilots ................................................................................................ 6

1.2 Template .................................................................................................................... 8

2 Rationale of the Pilots ...................................................................................................... 10

2.1 Irish Pilot................................................................................................................... 10

2.1.1 Overview - desired outcome............................................................................ 10

2.1.2 Reasons ............................................................................................................ 15

2.1.3 Options ............................................................................................................. 19

2.1.4 Benefits expected............................................................................................. 20

2.1.5 Key Risks ........................................................................................................... 23

2.1.6 Cost / benefit analysis ...................................................................................... 24

2.1.7 Evaluation......................................................................................................... 27

2.2 Slovakian Pilot .......................................................................................................... 31


2.2.2 Reasons ............................................................................................................ 31

2.2.3 Options ............................................................................................................. 32


2.2.5 Key Risks ........................................................................................................... 33


2.2.7 Evaluation......................................................................................................... 36

2.3 Spanish-Portuguese Pilot ......................................................................................... 36


2.3.2 Reasons ............................................................................................................ 38

2.3.3 Options ............................................................................................................. 40


2.3.5 Key Risks ........................................................................................................... 42


2.3.7 Evaluation......................................................................................................... 43

2.4 Czech Pilot ................................................................................................................ 44


2.4.2 Reasons ............................................................................................................ 44



2.4.3 Options ............................................................................................................. 46


2.4.5 Key Risks ........................................................................................................... 47


2.4.7 Evaluation......................................................................................................... 50

2.5 Italian Pilot................................................................................................................ 51


2.5.2 Reasons ............................................................................................................ 54

2.5.3 Options ............................................................................................................. 55


2.5.5 Key Risks ........................................................................................................... 56


2.5.7 Evaluation......................................................................................................... 57

3 Conclusions....................................................................................................................... 58

List of Figures

Figure 1 The Burren National Park ........................................................................................... 11 Figure 2 Location of the Maceda-Allariz area .......................................................................... 37 Figure 3 Previous scheme of the timber process in the studied area....................................... 37 Figure 4 Variable query for a plot and result showing recommended species ........................ 39 Figure 5 UHUL-FMI web portal................................................................................................. 50

List of Tables

Table 1 Irish Pilot risks evaluation ............................................................................................ 24 Table 2 Irish Pilot Validation approaches................................................................................. 28 Table 3 Irish Pilot scenarios ...................................................................................................... 29 Table 4 Slovakian Pilot risks evaluation ................................................................................... 35 Table 5 Spanish-Portuguese Pilot risks evaluation................................................................... 42 Table 6 Czech Pilot risks evaluation ......................................................................................... 49 Table 7 Italian Pilot initial list of stakeholders ......................................................................... 54 Table 8 Italian Pilot risks evaluation ........................................................................................ 56



Contractual Date of Delivery to the EC: Date 31 of July, 2014

Actual Date of Delivery to the EC: 29 of August,2014

Editor(s): TRAGSA

Contributor(s): TRAGSA, MAC, SAZP, ARPA, FMI

DOCUMENT HISTORY

Version Version date Responsible Description

0.1 24 of July, 2014 TRAGSA First draft version with contributions from MAC, SAZP and TRAGSA

0.2 7 of August, 2014 TRAGSA Contributions from FMI and ARPA

0.3 26 of August, 2014 TRAGSA Introduction and conclusions

1.0 29 of August, 2014 TRAGSA Editorial Changes and final version

The information and views set out in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Communities. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Copyright © 2014, SmartOpenData Consortium.



Executive Summary

The purpose of this deliverable is to show the results of task that has defined the rationale of the pilots by identifying the most promising real world use cases for the scenarios depicted in previous deliverables. The main goal of this deliverable is to show and demonstrate the impact of the sharing and exploiting data and information from many varied resources, in rural and European protected areas by providing public access to the data. In this sense, the pilots will address results in the domains of public bodies, researchers, companies and citizens. In addition, this task will define the evaluation set-up and the objectives to be evaluated.



1 Introduction

The purpose of this document is to define and explain the rationale of the pilots after the identification of the most promising real world use cases for the scenarios defined, as stated in SmartOpenData D2.2 User requirements and use cases. This document has the aim of demonstrate the impact obtained due to the sharing and exploiting data and information from existing and varied resources. Besides these technical definitions, and in addition, this document will define the evaluation set-up and the objectives to be evaluated. All these points will be in-depth analyzed in other deliverables as D 6.1 Evaluation plan and D 6.2 User groups set up and analysis.

This document will consist, mainly, in the following general information:

• A theoretical introduction about what is a Rationale • The template used to obtain feedback from the pilots

And, from each SmartOpenData pilot:

• A generic overview: Current situation and developing reasons • Alternatives and options • Benefits expected • Key risks • Cost/benefits analysis • Pilot results evaluation

1.1 Rationale of the pilots

In a broad sense, a rationale is a statement of facts explaining the background of a project or technical activity. Therefore, the rationale identifies the need for the product or process and offers viable solutions. The rationale is one of the first documents to be written by a project manager and sets the background for the business case.

A rationale explains why the project must go ahead 1, and what would happen if the project was not approved for further considerations. Consequently, the rationale is one of the first documents that will be studied by project responsibles and therefore can act as a launching pad for making the first impressions with those in charge.

According to Bentley2, the Reasons statement or Rationale is a narrative description of the justification for the undertaking of the activity in response to business drivers. It forms the first part of the business case which provides the justification for the task as an entity; though, in other methodologies, reasons for a project is not the same as justification. In our

1 Jarczyk, Alex P.; Löffler, Peter; Shipman III, Frank M. (1992), "Design Rationale for Software

Engineering: A Survey", 25th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2, pp. 577-586

2 Bentley, C, 2010, 2nd ed, PRINCE2 Revealed, Oxford,Butterworth-Heinemann



case, it is important to highlight that, besides our R&D activities, this business and economic activities orientation will be never forgotten.

Rationale is generally defined as the justification for undertaking an activity or, in different terms, the rationale is the articulation of reasons. It needs to be jargon free, specific, thorough, and readily understood

Monk argues3 that for a project to come to a successful fruition there has to be a justifiable rationale for its launch, and it must hold true throughout the project life cycle as part of an on-going business case. Otherwise the project will face uncertainty and will lead to unreliable business benefits

In general terms, the rationale should be approached as a strategic plan within organisational context and it needs to address the following issues:

1. Where are we now: Identify the organisational strategy; the need for the activity within organisational context and its fit with other tasks; and identification of the main drivers.

2. Where do want to be: what are the goals and benefits it will offer when completed within its given scope.

3. How do we get there: setting objectives as a measure of success; and how to utilise experience and lessons learnt from previous projects.

Therefore, the rationale must be evidence based and a clear and concise document underpinning the importance of the activity and state justifiable reasons for its approval. In this sense, the rationale will:

o Outline the identified problem within organisational context.

o Analyse the main determinants such as market requirements, identified risks, and resource requirements.

o Evaluate possible solutions and recommendation of preferred option.

o Draw on previous experience and lessons learnt from previous projects for justification of assumptions.

o Clear statement of goals to be achieved and benefits to gain.

The rationale is the reason statement explaining the problem, identifying the need, and offering justifiable solutions. It can be said that the use case provides the focus for the project which narrates the rationale and the justification. Moreover, the rationale describes the market opportunity, offers business solutions and identifies the context within the organisational strategy.

Using all this theoretical approximation, from each SmartOpenData pilot has been collected the following information:

3 Monk, A, 2012,http://ezinearticles.com/?Prince2-Principles-Part-1&id=6940703



• A statement of facts explaining the background of the pilot in order to identify the need for pilot and offer viable solutions.

• Explanation about why the pilot must go ahead and what would happen if the pilot was not developed.

The rationale has been approached as a strategic plan within SmartOpenData context and the following issues has been addressed:

• Where are we now? Current situation in the pilots • Where do want to be? What are the pilot goals and benefits that it will offer when

completed • How do we get there? Setting objectives, identifying milestones and outcomes as a

measure of success. How to utilise experience and lessons learnt from previous projects and their pilots.

As a result, the SmartOpenData rationale of the pilots is, basically:

• A clear and concise document underpinning the importance of the pilot and state justifiable reasons for its development.

• An identification of problems within the current context. • An analysis of the main determinants such as market requirements, identified risks,

and resource requirements. • A statement of goals to be achieved and benefits to gain.

1.2 Template

In order to collect all the required information, the following template has been sent to all responsibles for the pilots to obtain the most accurate data.

Rationale template

Name of pilot:

Author:

Date last modified:

Overview - desired outcome

What is being considered, and what will be the outcome?

Reasons

Why this pilot – product – app is being considered?



Description of the reasons

What will happen if nothing changes? Problems of the current situation (if they exist)

Description of the current solution or situation

Options

List of option in line with the reasons above, including a “do nothing” and “zero investment and research”.

Include pros and cons for each option and indicate which option you recommend.

Benefits expected

Express these in measurable (if possible) and tangible terms against today’s situation

Key Risks

What might reduce the chances of successfully achieving the goals of the pilot, and what could be done to reduce those risks?

Risk

(what might go wrong)

Impact

(Estimate 1-5)

Probability

(Estimate 1-5)

Severity

(Impact x probability)

Risk Response

How will the possible impact be reduced?

Cost / benefit analysis

This illustrates the balance between the costs and the expected benefits, over a period of time. It is important to consider more than the immediate cash costs; what are the development, operational, maintenance and support costs? Wherever possible, the expected benefits should be stated in tangible ways. The benefits may start off as intangible, for example ‘happier users’ and, after, could be turned into specific facts. The benefits can be turned into a likely monetary saving (a measurable, tangible benefit) but don’t try to assign a cash value to benefits unless there is a valid way to do it.

Evaluation

How will the stakeholders know that the pilot’s intended outcomes have been achieved?

How will the pilot demonstrate this achievement?



2 Rationale of the Pilots

The following section contains the information sent by pilots according to the previously mentioned template.

2.1 Irish Pilot

Name of pilot: Irish Pilot

Author: John O’Flaherty

Date last modified: 15 July 2014

2.1.1 Overview - desired outcome


The Irish Pilot will focus on the use of the SmartOpenData infrastructure to provide open data and open INSPIRE-compliant geospatial sources for environmental researchers particularly focused on biodiversity and habitats, building on participative social validation and pilots. Focusing on European protected areas and its National Parks, starting with the Burren National Park in Ireland.

The pilot aims is to demonstrate the value of SmartOpenData in helping Researchers and Decision Makers to better manage, preserve, sustain and use this unique ecosystem in 4 user scenarios:

1. SmartOpenData enabled European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) Webservice for the Burren & European GeoParks Network.

2. SmartOpenData enabled Farming for Conservation webservice 3. SmartOpenData enabled App to Ground-Truth potential Protected Monument sites 4. SmartOpenData Platform input to the Irish Open Government Partnership (OGP) process These will be complemented by various social networking and crowd sourcing mobile apps to engage stakeholders at the local level in particular.

The pilot will access and aggregate sources to impact on the area of biodiversity, by allowing them to seamlessly bridge the major gap between the “worlds” of open data and INSPIRE geo-spatial sources, to validate a major value-add and impact on their work. Some of the main issues to be addressed include:

• Discovery and seamless use, and mashing together of all available sources to address immediate research issues;

• Overcoming the barriers (cultural, political, administrative) to opening up the data;

• Overcoming technical incompatibilities of datasets in terms of technical standards, semantic structuring etc.; and



• Validation of the SmartOpenData platform in the aggregation, analysis, and visualisation to support decision making of the various research and other stakeholders requirements, and the value-add/impact on their work.

Burren National Park

At a national level this pilot will initially focus on the Burren National Park in Ireland4. The Burren National Park is located in the south-eastern corner of the Burren and is approximately 1500 hectares in size. The Park land was bought by the Government for nature conservation and public access. It contains examples of all the major habitats within the Burren: Limestone Pavement, Calcareous grassland, Hazel scrub, and Ash/hazel woodland, Turloughs, Lakes, Petrifying springs, cliffs and Fen.

Figure 1 The Burren National Park

Irish Pilot Use Cases

From meetings and discussions with the various stakeholder groups in the Burren, the following four User Scenarios were identified as being most beneficial to them;

1. SmartOpenData enabled ETIS Webservice for the Burren & European GeoParks Network

The Burren Geopark has adopted the recently launched European Tourism Indicator System for the Sustainable Management of Destinations (ETIS)5 to monitor and measure performance and is one of 100 destinations in Europe that are currently piloting this system. Further to this, Fáilte Ireland, the national tourism development authority, has expressed interest in using the Geopark’s work on the ETIS as a pilot for assessing for larger-scale, national projects.

The SmartOpenData enabled ETIS web service for sustainable management at destination level, will streamline and enhance the current manual system by transforming the ETIS Excel

4 www.burrennationalpark.ie

5 http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/tourism/sustainable-tourism/indicators/index_en.htm



dataset into Linked Open Geospatial Data, and enable the Burren GeoPark initially (and all other GeoParks subsequently) to:

1. Set up their destination with suitable indicators and targets (by its Local Destination Co-

ordinator and Stakeholder Working Group).

2. Provide online data collection by each stakeholder group (including Destination

management, Enterprise, Resident and Visitor Surveys) – this will include automatic

updating from appropriate online source databases.

3. Review progress and results achieved to date at their destination by Monitoring Results

and Charting Destination, Enterprises, Residents, Visitors Impressions, Spending and

Time – this will include automatic geographic visualisation by linking to appropriate

Geospatial data sources. This will enable the Stakeholder Working Group and

visualisation by the various stakeholders to provide an ongoing community

“crowsdsourcing verification” that the results and data being entered matches the

perceptions of the various stakeholders.

4. Provide benchmarking with other destinations (e.g. other GeoParks) through each of

these views and access to their linked open datasets6.

The web service will be accessible on PCs, Tablets and Smart phones.

It is anticipated that as each destination’s use of the ETIS matures and the indicator data collected becomes more extensive, the web service will enable comparisons of the destination’s progress against international benchmarks. This will give greater context to the achievements and give destination stakeholders motivation to take further actions to improve results. It will also encourage knowledge sharing between destinations. The intention is not to create competition between destinations, but to recognise that the results generated through the process are core to the decision making plans for each destination.

2. SmartOpenData enabled Farming for Conservation webservice

The Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP) provides a template for the future management of the Burren and other high nature value (HNV) areas. Appropriate management of the land ensures maintenance of and/or improvement in the conservation status of the Annex I habitats and leads to an increase in the area of sustainably managed HNV farmland within the Burren. This will in turn lead to an improvement in water quality in aquatic ecosystems and ensure the maintenance of and/or improvement in the high quality Burren landscape and its cultural heritage.

A series of databases has been set up and is being maintained to manage and store the wide variety of data and additional information generated by the BFCP mainly in Microsoft Excel format spreadsheets. GIS databases have been set up and include spatial data such as Irish

6 The pilot may find that the ongoing community stakeholders’ crowdsourcing verification at point 3,

may not be adequate for the Geoparks Network, who may prefer to include independent 3rd

party verification of the data to ensure the integrity of the ETIS benchmarking across the Geoparks. This may require another visualisation option across the destinations to verify that the data being entered is good as basically the GeoParks will be competing with each other in the GeoParks Network benchmarking exercise.



Government’s Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) land parcels, Ordnance Survey Ireland maps and aerial photos, farm boundaries, field boundaries, SAC designated areas, and national monuments.

The SmartOpenData platform will be used to make this data open and linked, with integrated spatial content, while protecting its sensitive data. As the Irish National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) data is predominantly INSPIRE compliant, the SmartOpenData platform will enable its seamless interoperability with the BFCP datasets.

The SmartOpenData enabled web service will support the BFCP Team (including Programme Manager and Programme Scientist) in the production and maintenance of a set of detailed, comprehensive and regularly updated datasets on all aspects of the farm plans and the monitoring programmes. It could also provide access to the DAFM and NPWS Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) based on-line planning system, aerial photographs and digital maps through a third party agreement with OSI. The system will provide a template for future management of the Burren and other HNV areas.

Being linked and open, the web service will enable seamless access by the NPWS and other relevant Government Departments, such as the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DAHG). Also, because it is linked and open, it will allow its seamless operation with the DAFM’s own ESRI, ArcGIS systems using the appropriate open data plugins7.

3. SmartOpenData enabled App to Ground-Truth potential Protected Monument sites

The SmartOpenData platform will enable the provision of an App service to mobilise a very motivated community, by enabling visitors and people interested in their local heritage, to seek out and ground truth[1] potential Monument sites in the Burren and beyond.

The Monuments Ground Truthing App will:

1. Introduce the National Monuments Service, and direct users to browse open satellite

map sources such as GoogleMaps[2] and BingMaps[3], to find potential archaeological

sites in their chosen area (or their current locations if they are already on site). Later on,

further Geographic Information (GI) sources from the Heritage Council Map Viewer, may

also be included.

2. Allow the user to access a LOD database of previous ground truthing observations,

and the Heritage Council’s Map Viewer to determine if a chosen site is already recorded

by the National Monuments Service as a national monument or has been previously

crowd-source reported. If so the user can continue to investigate their chosen area for

other potential sites.

7 See for instance www.esri.com/esri-news/releases/14-1qtr/esri-to-preview-open-data-initiative-at-

federal-conference [1]

Ground truthing is the process of gathering data in the field that either complements or disputes airborne remote sensing data collected by aerial photography, satellite sidescan radar, or infrared images (http://www.missiongroundtruth.com/groundtruth.html), see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_truth [2]

www.googlemaps.com [3]

www.bing.com/maps/



3. Support the user on-site to ground truth a potential archaeological site. This will

involve using their phone or tablet to take a number of photographs, record notes, note

the geo-location using their phone’s GPS, as well as their own identity.

4. The recorded information will be uploaded to a LOD database, that will be mainly

CSV with the images, associated maps and GI.

5. Field Monument Advisers, National Monuments Service staff, and other experts (as

well as people who may be interested in the app, such as members of the BurrenBeo

Volunteers, Institute of Archaeology of Ireland, GeoPark/BFCP Team, etc) will have

access to a webservice to authenticate each crowd-sourced ground truthing observation

uploaded to the LOD database. They will be able to inform and/or post further queries to

the person who uploaded the observations. They will also be able to delete any

defamatory, malicious or frivolous observations. All other observations, will then be

visible to the general public on a map, showing the protected monuments (via the

Heritage Council’s Map Viewer), the crowd-sourced ground truthing observations that

are potential national monuments, as well as those that are not (to avoid people wasting

their time investigating them again).

6. After suitable further verification by the National Monuments Service (using the

SmartOpenData enabled webservice), the validated new monuments will also be

recorded in the National Monuments Service’s ESRI ArcGIS Map Viewer system.

The Burren is very well observed and recorded over many years, so few new National Monument sites are likely to be found. However other sites, such as Lough Derg and the Slieve Aughtry, which is also in the Mid-West Region of Ireland, is likely to yield many new national monuments. So further sites, beyond the Burren, are likely to be supported by this Application quite early during the WP5 pilot trials.

4. SmartOpenData Platform input to the Irish OGP Open Data Portal process and W3C “CSV on the Web”

standard

The SmartOpenData platform will complement the ongoing work of the Irish Government by providing best practice tools, insights seamless access to data sources and validation (in the WP5 pilots) to address objective 4 of the Irish Government’s OGP Initiative.

The SmartOpenData platform CSV-to-RDF tools, as developed and used in the other Irish use cases and applications, will be adapted as a CKAN add in, for use on the Irish OGP alpha site and reference implementation for the emerging W3C “CSV on the web” WG standard8. The WG will issue their standard most likely in mid 2015, so will evolve in parallel with the SmartOpenData WP5 trials. The CKAN extension will be trialed and validated in the Irish Pilots and Irish OGP process implementation of the Irish Open Data Portal alpha site.

The SmartOpenData project and platform will also contribute to:

1 Identifying and aligning national requirements with best practice international standards for Open Data;

8 See http://www.w3.org/2013/05/lcsv-charter.html



2 Potential opportunities for Ireland to design its Open Data drawing on the experience of what has worked and has not worked in other jurisdictions and also drawing on the scope for positively differentiating Open Data in Ireland;

3 Establishing an inventory of datasets currently available in the public domain as well as assisting in identifying priority areas for the publication of datasets in the future; and

4 A roadmap for how Ireland could achieve its objectives in the area of Open Data.

These will be implemented by addressing the following during the WP5 pilots:

1. Best practice standards – for the publication and re-use of Open Data which can be used

to establish best practice standards in Ireland (guidelines/handbook)9

2. Data audit – of available information and an assessment of what could be published on

the portal.

3. Develop an alpha website – use the SmartOpenData platform as a starting point which

would allow for and encourage input from members of the Irish Open Data community.

4. Define roadmaps – which set out options.

5. Evaluation criteria –set out a potential framework for the evaluation of the success of

the Open Data project based on the SmartOpenData approach in WP6.

6. Guidance - set out the practical steps that can be taken by public bodies to facilitate

publication of data in Open Data format.

2.1.2 Reasons

Discussions with users and the various Burren stakeholders clarified and expanded the list of possible SmartOpenData use cases that could be addressed in the Irish Pilot in WP5. Having identified them and based on further discussions, and given budget and time constraints, they were then reduced to the 4 most useful use-cases described above, and that will be implemented in the WP5 pilot trials. These are likely to evolve as the SmartOpenData platform is developed and the WP5 pilot trials begin.


Description of the reasons.


This will support the “Burren GeoPark Tourism for Conservation”. The Burren and Cliffs of Moher is one of UNESCO’s recognised Global Geoparks. Geoparks are special regions with outstanding geology and local culture, with a management structure dedicated to the sustainable development of the region through research and tourism. The Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark is about people and organisations working together to ensure a cared-for landscape, a better-understood heritage, more sustainable tourism, a vibrant community and strengthened livelihoods.

9 For instance see D2.1 “Requirements of the SmartOpenData Infrastructure” at

www.smartopendata.eu/sites/default/files/SmartOpenData_D2.1_Requirements_of_the_infrastructure.pdf



The Geopark also manages the Burren Tourism for Conservation LIFE Project (LIFE11/IE/922)10. The aim of this LIFE project is to strengthen the integration of tourism and natural heritage, reconciling tourism development with conservation of geology, biodiversity and cultural heritage in the Burren area of County Clare. The innovative aspect of the Project is to advance tourism for conservation as a European methodology of value to local communities. This aims to be a strong demonstration project with pilot actions being stimulated to test the use of tourism for conservation in the Burren. The project’s main objectives are:

1. To create a transferable model for sustainable tourism destination development built on partnership; and

2. To show measurable environmental, social and economic benefits of the model.

The SmartOpenData platform and apps will directly contribute to the second objective, and be part of the model that can be transferred to all European GeoParks.


This will enhance and sustain the “Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP)”.

The Burren is internationally recognised for the uniqueness, wealth and diversity of its heritage. As a result, much of the Burren has been designated as part of the Natura 2000 Network under the EU Habitats Directive. These areas contain a variety of priority habitats including limestone pavements, orchid-rich grasslands and turloughs. The Burren Life Project 2005-2010 developed a new model of sustainable agriculture for the Burren to conserve and renew these habitats. A feature of the project and a key contributor to its success was the strong partnership amongst various stakeholders; the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DAHG), Teagasc and the Burren Irish Farmers Association. At the heart of the project was the recognition of the role that farmers and farming practices play in the conservation of habitats.

The Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP) includes a Project Team, funded by the NPWS, to implement the BFCP in consultation with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).

The primary objectives of the BFCP are:

1. To ensure the sustainable agricultural management of high nature value (HNV) farmland in the Burren.

2. To contribute to positive management of the Burren landscape and the cultural heritage of the Burren.

3. To contribute to improvements in water quality and water usage efficiency in the Burren region.

The web service and linked open data enabled by the SmartOpenData platform, will help achievement of the BFCP annual targets, and ensure the retention and interoperability of farm plans, their outputs and GI from year to year. This will enable broader and longitudinal

10

See www.burren.ie



research on the impact of the Farming for Conservation initiatives on the Burren and its agri-environmental benefits, by combining the data with other sources on economic, habitats and biodiversity parameters, and benchmarking with other National and European initiatives. Also being linked and open, the Farming for Conservation data could be used in other applications, such as tourism (for instance allowing tourists to find and identify such eco-friendly farms to visit).


This will greatly enhance the Heritage of the Burren and other regions in Ireland.

The Irish Heritage Council11 takes an integrated approach to heritage, with responsibilities that include both its cultural and natural aspects. The Irish Heritage Council’s vision is that the value of heritage is enjoyed, managed and protected for the vital contribution that it makes to the community’s identity, well-being and future. The Heritage Council is a public body working in the public interest; its priorities are to support jobs, education and heritage tourism in local communities. It complements but importantly builds on the work of other state heritage bodies which have primary responsibility for the care of property in state ownership and the designation of protected areas.

In practical programmes across Ireland the Heritage Council is putting in place infrastructure and networks to enable communities to take responsibility for and participate in the development and conservation of their heritage assets. The Heritage Council provides web access to Heritage Maps that allow users to look at a wide range of heritage data sets on a map12.

An INSPIRE compliant schema has been developed for the Irish National dataset of protected areas. The SmartOpenData platform will be used to publish that as LOD to ensure maximum reuse of its contents.


standard

This will directly contribute to the Irish Government’s Open Data initiative and W3C “CSV on the Web” standard.

Ireland is seeking full participation in the global multilateral Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative. The OGP aims at securing commitments from governments to share more information about their activities, increase civic participation in decision-making, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

Implementation of the Open Data proposals and the OGP project in Ireland is being led and coordinated by the Government Reform Unit in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, in collaboration with the Chief Information Officer of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

11

www.heritagecouncil.ie 12

See www.heritagecouncil.ie



As the CKAN open source data portal software13 is the platform for the French14, German15, UK16 and US17 government open data portals, as well as the existing Irish open data portal18, and will also be the platform for the Irish Government’s Open Data Platform. So the SmartOpenData platform will include, and integrate seamlessly with the CKAN tools to be used by all public agencies in Ireland.



1. SmartOpenData enabled European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) Webservice for the Burren &

European GeoParks Network.

The Burren, and all GeoParks, need an open common standard to track their progress towards their sustainability objectives in particular, and to benchmark their progress with other sustainable destinations. Currently the ETIS is the only such standard but being an offline Excel file it does not allow for real-time inputs or benchmarking across destinations. The SmartOpenData enabled service will address these as described above.


The Irish Government is spending much on the BFCP to ensure the sustainability of farming practices on the Burren. Without the SmartOpenData enabled service and open files, it will continue to be not possible to determine the long-term environmental impact on the Burren nor to provide it as a model for other HNV ecosystems to use across Europe.


Without the SmartOpenData enabled app and open use of the Irish Protected Monument sites dataset, the discovery, confirmation and awareness of the Burren’s and Ireland’s protected monuments will continue to be very slow, resulting in the loss of a number of those sites, and loss of a potential model to be used across Europe.

4. SmartOpenData Platform input to the Irish Open Government Partnership (OGP) process

The Irish OGP programme will be much diminished without input of the directly relevant SmartOpenData platform and best practice, particularly on “web enabling” CSV/Excel datasets, which form the bulk of government data, on the Irish CKAN Open Government Portal.

13

http://ckan.org/ 14

http://www.data.gouv.fr/ 15

See http://open-data.fokus.fraunhofer.de/?p=644&lang=en and http://opengovgermany.com/ 16

http://data.gov.uk/ 17

www.data.gov 18

http://www.opendata.ie



2.1.3 Options

List of option in line with the reasons above, including a “do nothing” and “zero investment

and research”.


The first 3 Irish Pilot’s scenarios mainly need to transform small CSV datasets to RDF – as per the W3C WG on “CSV on the Web”, and preferably implemented as a CKAN plugin to tie in with the Irish Open Government use case (scenario 4). However, the “con” is that these have not yet been generated for the ETIS and BFCP scenarios – see D2.2 section 4.2.

While the Irish Heritage ground-truthing scenario, needs to transform the Irish National Monuments dataset which is complaint to the “Protected Sites - Simple Application schema” of INSPIRE Annex I. The INSPIRE Protected Sites Data Specification uses the Geographic Markup Language (GML – Simple Features Profile)19.

The GeoKnow D2.7.1 deliverable has transformed the INSPIRE Protected Sites theme to LOD20, and have addressed all INSPIRE Annex I themes, so the “pro” is that their approach and tools could be used in other SmartOpenData pilots also.

For the small CSV datasets we can use one of the tools identified in D2.1, or others. But the “con” is that these have not been created as yet.

All of the other databases relevant to the Irish Pilot listed in section 4.2 of D2.2, are already open at the links provided in D2.2. Many are LOD already, so they do not need to be transformed. While others are OGC/INSPIRE compliant and can be accessed through the www.geoportal.ie catalogue or the Irish Spatial Data Exchange (ISDE) portal at www.isde.ie, and possibly use the same methodology as that for the INSPIRE Protected Sites, with the “pros” and “cons” as discussed above.

However the Irish pilot’s priorities are the CSV files (when they are created) and the Irish Monuments dataset.

So an initial list of services that the Irish Pilot will require from the SmartOpenData platform(as described in D2.2, in alphabetical order) are as follows:

1. Scalable general GI and non-GI to LOD transformation, harmonisation and semantic indexing infrastructure service, with persistent URIs, preferably using the INSPIRE Registry (see D2.1).

2. Scalable RDF Triple Storage service for the LOD (such as Virtuoso, see D2.1) 3. Visualisation framework (of GI and non-GI components) 4. Scalable CSV to RDF transformation tool(s), preferably as a CKAN plugin, in line with W3C

“CSV on the web” WG (See D2.1) 5. Scalable INSPIRE GI schema to LOD transformation and harmonisation service, with

persistent URIs, in particular INSPIRE Annex I theme “Protected Sites” (similar to GeoKnow D2.7.1).

19

See http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/index.cfm/pageid/2 and http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/documents/Data_Specifications/INSPIRE_DataSpecification_PS_v3.2.pdf 20

http://svn.aksw.org/projects/GeoKnow/Public/D2.7.1_Geodata.gov.gr_Geospatial_Data_as_Linked_Data.pdf



6. Scalable crowdsourced/VGI real-time data collection with an Open API.

The ETIS dataset structure is an Excel file21. This will be saved as a CSV or will be transformed directly to LOD from the Excel as described in D2.2 using the SmartOpenData platform. This has the “pro” of directly contributing to the W3C WG on “CSV on the Web”, as discussed above.

2.1.4 Benefits expected



The SmartOpenData enabled European Tourism Indicators System (ETIS) web service for sustainable management at destination level, will streamline and enhance the current manual system by transforming the ETIS Excel dataset into Linked Open Geospatial Data, and enable the Burren GeoPark initially (and all other GeoParks subsequently) to:

1. Set up their destination with suitable indicators and targets (by its Local Destination Co-ordinator and Stakeholder Working Group).

2. Provide online data collection by each stakeholder group (including Destination management, Enterprise, Resident and Visitor Surveys) – this will include automatic updating from appropriate online source databases.

3. Review progress and results achieved to date at their destination by Monitoring Results and Charting Destination, Enterprises, Residents, Visitors Impressions, Spending and Time – this will include automatic geographic visualisation by linking to appropriate Geospatial data sources. This will enable the Stakeholder Working Group and visualisation by the various stakeholders to provide an ongoing community “crowsdsourcing verification” that the results and data being entered matches the perceptions of the various stakeholders.

4. Provide benchmarking with other destinations (e.g. other GeoParks) through each of these views and access to their linked open datasets.


21

Available at http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/tourism/sustainable-tourism/indicators/documents_indicators/destination_dataset_en.zip




This will directly benefit the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP) which provides a template for the future management of the Burren and other High Natural Value (HNV) areas across Europe. Appropriate management of the land ensures the maintenance of and/or improvement in the conservation status of the INSPIRE Annex I habitats and lead to an increase in the area of sustainably managed high nature value farmland within the Burren. This will in turn lead to an improvement in water quality in aquatic ecosystems and ensure the maintenance of and/or improvement in the high quality Burren landscape and its cultural heritage.

The SmartOpenData enabled web service will support the BFCP Team in the production and maintenance of a set of detailed, comprehensive and regularly updated datasets on all aspects of the farm plans and the monitoring programmes. The system will provide a template for future management of the Burren and other HNV areas.

Being linked and open, the web service will enable seamless access by the NPWS and relevant Government Departments (such as the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DAHG) and Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM)). Also, because it is linked and open, it will allow its seamless operation with the Department’s own ESRI, ArcGIS systems using the appropriate open data plugins22.

Thus the web service and linked open data will ensure the retention and interoperability of farm plans, their outputs and GI from year to year. This will enable broader and longitudinal research on the impact of the Farming for Conservation initiatives on the Burren and its agri-environmental benefits, by combining the data with other sources on economic, habitats and biodiversity parameters, and benchmarking with other National and European initiatives. Also being linked and open, the Farming for Conservation data could be used in other applications, such as tourism (for instance allowing tourists to find and identify such eco-friendly farms to visit).


The SmartOpenData platform will enable the provision of an App service to mobilise a very motivated community, by enabling visitors and people interested in their local heritage, to seek out and ground truth potential Monument sites in the Burren and beyond.

The crowd-sourced ground truthing observations (both positive and negative) may be included as a permanent Voluntary Geographic Information (VGI) layer on the National Monuments map on the Irish Heritage Council’s Mapping Viewer. This process will also initiate a process for the digital preservation of the VGI data concerning the features that were investigated, both those that are validated to be national monument sites, and those that are not, to avoid people wasting their time and resources in investigating them again.

22

See for instance www.esri.com/esri-news/releases/14-1qtr/esri-to-preview-open-data-initiative-at-federal-conference



While the main users of the app service will be experienced archaeological users and visitors to the Burren who are motivated to record the local heritage, the app and process will be very educational and will probably be used by teachers and students to discover and contribute to their local heritage. For instance, it could complement the courses and practical local environmental work carried out by BurrenBeo Trust[4].


The SmartOpenData App may also help Burren farmers (as well as Irish farmers generally) to determine if their farm might contain a potential National Monument Site (especially field systems) on their land. The BFCP works closely with the National Monuments Service with regard to proposed M2 works and the existing legislation for National and Recorded Monuments.


standard

The SmartOpenData platform will complement the ongoing work of the Irish Government Reform Unit by providing best practice tools, insights seamless access to data sources and validation (in the WP5 pilots) to address objective 4 of the Irish Government’s OGP Initiative.

The SmartOpenData platform Excel/CSV-to-RDF tools, as developed and used in the other Irish use cases and applications, will be adapted as a CKAN add in, for use on the Irish OGP alpha site and reference implementation for the emerging W3C “CSV on the web” WG standard23. The WG will issue their standard most likely in mid 2015, so will evolve in parallel with the SmartOpenData WP5 trials. The CKAN extension will be trialed and validated in the Irish Pilots and Irish OGP process implementation of the Irish Open Data Portal alpha site.

The SmartOpenData project and platform will also contribute to:

1. Identifying and aligning national requirements with best practice international standards for Open Data;

2. Potential opportunities for Ireland to design its Open Data drawing on the experience of what has worked and has not worked in other jurisdictions and also drawing on the scope for positively differentiating Open Data in Ireland;

3. Establishing an inventory of datasets currently available in the public domain as well as assisting in identifying priority areas for the publication of datasets in the future; and

4. A roadmap for how Ireland could achieve its objectives in the area of Open Data.

[4]

See www.burrenbeo.com 23

See http://www.w3.org/2013/05/lcsv-charter.html



These will be implemented by addressing the following during the WP5 pilots:

• Best practice standards – for the publication and re-use of Open Data which can be used to establish best practice standards in Ireland (guidelines/handbook)

• Data audit – of available information and inputting to what could be published on the portal.

• Develop an alpha website – use the SmartOpenData platform as a starting point which would allow for and encourage input from members of the Irish Open Data community.

• Define roadmaps – define roadmaps which: (a) set out options for an agile development and implementation of an Open Data Platform with associated costs and timelines; and (b) on how to progress the project following the initial period of work.

• Evaluation criteria –set out a potential framework for the evaluation of the success of the Open Data project based on the SmartOpenData approach in WP6.

• Guidance - set out the practical steps that need to be taken by public bodies to facilitate publication of data in Open Data format, (e.g. the creation, formatting, integration, storage and publication of data).

2.1.5 Key Risks

What might reduce the chances of successfully achieving the goals of the pilot, and what

could be done to reduce those risks?

Risk


Impact

(Estimate 1-5)

Probability

(Estimate 1-5)

Severity


Risk Response


Implementation of the Irish Pilot’s 4 use cases may require more effort and resources than planned.

3 4 12

WP5 which is implementing and will run the Irish Pilot, is keeping in close contact with and building on the SmartOpenData functionalities being developed in WP4, and the data work of WP3. The pilot will be implemented in 2 phases to allow any required readjustment of effort or specifications.

The Irish Pilot’s proposed services may be created by others.

2 4 8

In the very dynamic GI/LOD area and given the real needs identified in the Irish pilot, this is a real possibility. However the SmartOpenData platform will build on and be ahead of the state-of-the-art (in WP3 and WP4), and in WP5 the pilot will be implemented in 2 phases to ensure that it continues to meet users' requirements and stay ahead of the competition.

The SmartOpendata platform may be

5 2 10 WP3 and WP4, which are developing the SmartOpenData functionalities are



inadequate to support the Irish pilot’s requirements.

building directly on the requirements of the pilots in WP2, and will keep very close with the work of WP5, which will implement and run the pilots.

Use of the Irish Pilot's services, and user involvement and participation in the Irish pilot may not be adequate to validate the SmartOpenData services.

5 2 10

In WP2, both MWRA and MAC have already met the pilot’s users and other stakeholders a number of times and is collaboratively defining the scenarios with them, so that they will be directly useful to them and provide value-added services that they actually need. This collaborative approach will be continued in the two phased approach in WP5 and in WP6 to the end of the project.

Ongoing work with the Irish Pilot’s SmartOpenData enabled services may indicate that their continued operation is not sustainable.

4 3 12

A core aim of WP7 is addressing sustainability, so this will allow intense discussions to be continued with the stakeholders and amongst the partners to come up with viable and sustainable models.

The SmartOpenData evaluation and validation methodology may not be appropriate and acceptable to be used by all stakeholders associated with the Pilot.

4 3 12

Building on the user requirements in WP2, this is being addressed by the Evaluation Plan, user groups involvement and evaluation implementation in WP6.

The outcomes of the Irish Pilot do not reflect the real needs and priorities of the stakeholders.

4 2 8

Based on the work of WP2, the Irish pilot (and the project generally) is prioritising a user-driven approach and quality assurance through the stakeholder involvement.

Table 1 Irish Pilot risks evaluation

2.1.6 Cost / benefit analysis

This illustrates the balance between the costs and the expected benefits, over a period of

time.

It is important to consider more than the immediate cash costs; what are the development, operational, maintenance and support costs? Wherever possible, the expected benefits should be stated in tangible ways. The benefits may start off as intangible, for example ‘happier users’ and, after, could be turned into specific facts. The benefits can be turned into a likely monetary saving (a measurable, tangible benefit) but don’t try to assign a cash value to benefits unless there is a valid way to do it.



Using the facilities of the SmartOpenData Platform the development and operational costs of GI/LOD services and apps should be reasonably low as planned in the DoW. Being standardised GI and LOD, the operational, maintenance and support costs should be lower than any alternative approach to providing the services proposed to meet the needs identified in the Irish Pilot.

1. SmartOpenData enabled European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) Webservice for the Burren &

European GeoParks Network.

The tangible benefits in the short term for the Burren and other GeoParks will be the ability to define their destination’s indicators and targets by its Local Destination Co-ordinator and Stakeholder Working Group, then track their progress in real-time through crowd-sourcing by the various stakeholders, and provide benchmarking with other destinations (e.g. other GeoParks) through each of the provided views and access to their linked open datasets. As well as the control, extra visitors and profile that this will provide to each GeoPark, this will also demonstrate and validate the ETIS approach for all of Europe.


The monetisation of these benefits will be expressed in the plans of the Burren and other GeoParks.


This will directly benefit the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP) which provides a template for the future management of the Burren and other High Natural Value (HNV) areas across Europe. Appropriate management of the land ensures maintenance of and/or improvement in the conservation status of the INSPIRE Annex I habitats and lead to an increase in the area of sustainably managed high nature value farmland within the Burren. This will in turn lead to an improvement in water quality in aquatic ecosystems and ensure the maintenance of and/or improvement in the high quality Burren landscape and its cultural heritage.

In the short term, the SmartOpenData enabled web service will support the BFCP Team in the production and maintenance of a set of detailed, comprehensive and regularly updated datasets on all aspects of the farm plans and the monitoring programmes. The system will provide a template for future management of the Burren and other HNV areas. Being linked and open, the web service will enable seamless access by the NPWS and relevant Government Departments (such as the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DAHG) and Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM)). Also, because it is



linked and open, it will allow its seamless operation with the DAFM’s ESRI, ArcGIS systems using the appropriate open data plugins. The tangible benefits of these will be quantified by the BFCP programme itself in its annual plans and results.

In the longer-term, the web service and linked open data will ensure the retention and interoperability of farm plans, their outputs and GI from year to year. This will enable broader and longitudinal research on the impact of the Farming for Conservation initiatives on the Burren and its agri-environmental benefits, by combining the data with other sources on economic, habitats and biodiversity parameters, and benchmarking with other National and European initiatives. Also being linked and open, the Farming for Conservation data could be used in other applications, such as tourism (for instance allowing tourists to find and identify such eco-friendly farms to visit).


The tangible benefits of this App’s crowd-sourced ground truthing observations (both positive and negative) may be included as a permanent Voluntary Geographic Information (VGI) layer on the National Monuments map on the Irish Heritage Council’s Mapping Viewer. This process will also initiate a process for the digital preservation of the VGI data concerning the features that were investigated, both those that are validated to be national monument sites, and those that are not, to avoid people wasting their time and resources in investigating them again.

In the short-term the benefits will be increased special interest tourists visiting the Burren, and other supported sites, and greater awareness of the Irish Protected Monuments sites. For instance, the App may help Burren farmers (as well as Irish farmers generally) to determine if their farm might contain a potential National Monument Site (especially field systems) on their land. In addition, the app and process will be very educational and will probably be used by teachers and students to discover and contribute to their local heritage. For instance, it could complement the courses and practical local environmental work carried out by BurrenBeo Trust[4].



standard

The SmartOpenData platform will complement the ongoing work of the Irish Government Reform Unit by providing best practice tools, insights seamless access to data sources and validation (in the WP5 pilots) to address objective 4 of the Irish Government’s OGP Initiative, providing the various longer term benefits that were listed earlier.

[4]

See www.burrenbeo.com



Perhaps the most tangible benefit will be the SmartOpenData platform Excel/CSV-to-RDF tools, as developed and used in the other Irish use cases and applications, will be adapted as a CKAN add in, for use on the Irish OGP alpha site and reference implementation for the emerging W3C “CSV on the web” WG standard24. The WG will issue their standard most likely in mid 2015, so will evolve in parallel with the SmartOpenData WP5 trials. The CKAN extension will be trialed and validated in the Irish Pilots and Irish OGP process implementation of the Irish Open Data Portal alpha site.

2.1.7 Evaluation


The stakeholders will know that the Irish Pilot’s intended outcomes have been achieved when the 4 intended user scenarios

1. SmartOpenData enabled European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) Webservice for the Burren & European GeoParks Network

2. SmartOpenData enabled Farming for Conservation webservice. 3. SmartOpenData enabled App to Ground-Truth potential Protected Monument sites 4. SmartOpenData Platform input to the Irish Open Government Partnership (OGP) process

Are operational and being used by their users, with the functionality as described above, involving

1. User engagement – as a first step in validating the value of the Irish Pilot’s services to its intended users.

2. Direct user interaction with the open data access process – as the next step in user involvement with the GI/LOD sources.

3. Co-design of innovative “demand pull” services –- the ultimate engagement of the stakeholders to evolve the Irish Pilot’s service beyond the project, and use the SmartOpenData platform to create new opportunities, and in turn sustain the platform.


The Irish Pilot will demonstrate achievement of its intended outcomes mainly through User Social Validation, which will identify criteria and indicators of success according to the different standpoints of the actors represented in each usage scenario, as a framework for evaluating the added value of the services that conform to the standards proposed by SmartOpenData. This activity does not start from scratch, but takes into account the taxonomy of social validation approaches elaborated in the HABITATS project25, i.e.: 1. Validation driven by the prospect of user engagement - In this case end-users are not yet

directly involved in social validation, but the prospect of user engagement is already influencing institutional behaviour.

2. Validation through direct user interaction with the open data access process - With the direct participation of (expert/non expert) users in data access.

24

See http://www.w3.org/2013/05/lcsv-charter.html 25

Described in “INSPIRE and Social Empowerment for Environmental Sustainability - Results from the HABITATS project”, 2013, ISBN-13; 978-84-616-3646-4 available at http://www.inspiredhabitats.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=86&Itemid=119



3. Validation driven by the co-design of innovative “demand pull” services - This is the most user-driven approach, as it actually involves final end-users in the co-design of services that use the SmartOpenData platform.

The indicator sets that will be defined in WP6 will be matched with a composite list of evaluative questions to be used for the pragmatic assessment of impact generated by the Apps and services enabled by the SmartOpenData platform for each of the scenarios – and more broadly, on the environmental related activities users are involved in.

The mapping of each validation approach to each scenario in the Irish Pilot will be broadly as follows:

Pilot & Validation approaches.

Validation

driven by the

prospect of

user

engagement

Validation through

direct user

interaction with

the open data

access process

Validation driven

by the co-design

of innovative

“demand pull”

services

1. SmartOpenData enabled ETIS Webservice for the Burren & European GeoParks Network.

X X X


X X


X X


X X

Table 2 Irish Pilot Validation approaches

The Criteria of Success of the Irish Pilot’s Scenarios will be as follows:

• Usage level and User Validation of the Irish Pilot’s Services that use SmartOpenData

• Increased access to harmonised and interoperable GI, L/OD and VGI data

• Integrate data from users’, OD, crowd-sourced and social media.

• Integration of VGI into existing SDIs and LOD

• Easy collection of information using smart phones and LOD

• Reuse and share tourist information resources, channels and tools

• New tourism activities, visitors and jobs, and new SME developed Apps and Services.

The following summarises an initial list of the main criteria to be achieved in the Irish pilot by the end of the project in October 2015:

Irish Pilot Scenarios.

Apps/ Svcs

in

Operation

No of

App/ Svc

Users

No GI/LOD

datasets in

use

No VGI

datasets

created

Monthly

access-es

New

Apps/

Svcs

1. SmartOpenData enabled ETIS Webservice for the Burren & European GeoParks Network.

2 15 10 2 100 2


1 10 5 0 25 0


1 10 5 1 50 2




1 15 20 2 25 0

Total for Irish Pilot 5 50 40 5 200 4

Table 3 Irish Pilot scenarios

The final targets for each will be refined and agreed in line with the project’s overall targets, that will be defined in the WP6 Evaluation Plan, and access to various sources by collaborating with, and building on various open data and geo-spatial sources and initiatives that will have a particular value for biodiversity researchers, including:

• The European Biodiversity Observation Network, EUBON project26;

• European Environmental Agency (EEA), Biodiversity data centre (BDC)27;

• PESI28;

• FP7 EUBrazilOpenBio29;

• LifeWatch European research infrastructure30;

• The Joinup Portal31;

• EU Open Data Portal32,

• The UK environmental Agency’s Datashare33,

• The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)34.

The Irish Pilot will also use the SmartOpenData platform to mash disparate open data sources such as those listed at FreeGISdata35 and the UK GeoStore36, which allow use subject to the terms and conditions of the Open Government Licence (OGL), and others, in various data formats. The implications of these for researchers will be explored in the pilot and supported using the platform.

The MWRA, with the technical support of MAC, will work with Irish public agencies, Local Authorities and community groups associated with the Burren in the implementation and use of the SmartOpenData platform in the WP5 validation trials to demonstrate and evaluate its value in helping researchers, decision makers and communities to better manage, preserve, maintain and use this unique ecosystem. These will include:

• Local Authorities - Clare37, Limerick38 and North Tipperary39 Councils

26

www.earthobservations.org/geobon.shtml 27

www.eea.europa.eu/themes/biodiversity/dc 28

www.eu-nomen.eu/portal 29

www.eubrazilopenbio.eu 30

www.lifewatch.eu 31

http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/catalogue 32

http://open-data.europa.eu/en/data/dataset 33

www.geostore.com/environment-agency/WebStore 34

www.gbif.org 35

http://freegisdata.rtwilson.com 36

http://www.geostore.com/environment-agency/WebStore?xml=environment-agency/xml/application.xml 37

www.clarecoco.ie 38

www.lcc.ie and www.limerickcity.ie 39

www.tipperarynorth.ie



• National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS)40 - Who manage the Burren and other National Parks in Ireland and are responsible for the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP)41

• Burren Communities42, including Burrenbeo Teo Trust43, BurrenLIFE project44, Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark45 and Burren Ecotourism Network (BEN)46

Their validation of the SmartOpenData value-add/impact on their work will involve using the platform to access sources such as:

• The Irish National Parks & Wildlife Services (NPWS) - extensive open online maps and datasets47,

• The National Biodiversity Data Centre Ireland48’

• Irish Open Government Portal49,

• Logainm Placenames Database of Ireland50

• Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) Linked Data Service for Census Results51

• The Irish Opendata Portal52,

• The All-Island Research Observatory (AIRO)53,

• The Irish Spatial Data Infrastructure GeoPortal54,

• The Irish Spatial Data Exchange (ISDE)55,

• The Irish Heritage Council heritage maps56,

• MyPlan public planning information portal57,

• The Marine Institute Ireland, who have extensive OGC/INSPIRE compliant geo-spatial data58, which are all searchable using the ISDE Browser59. In addition there are a number of interactive services available to the public, such as the vessel tracking service and Survey Planning System60.

40

www.npws.ie 41

See http://www.burrenbeo.com/learning-landscape/heritage-helpers/farmers/burren-life-report and www.agriculture.gov.ie/farmerschemespayments/otherfarmersschemes/burrenfarmingforconservationprogramme 42

See for instance, the Burren Community Charter at www.heritagecouncil.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Wildlife/Draft_Burren_Community_Charter.pdf 43

www.burrenbeo.com 44

www.burrenlife.com 45

www.burrengeopark.ie 46

www.burrenecotourism.com 47

www.npws.ie/mapsanddata 48

www.biodiversityireland.ie 49

http://data.gov.ie/ 50

www.logainm.ie/en 51

http://data.cso.ie 52

www.opendata.ie 53

www.airo.ie 54

www.geoportal.ie 55

www.isde.ie 56

http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/heritage-maps/heritage-maps/ 57

www.myplan.ie 58

www.marine.ie/home/publicationsdata 59

http://catalogue.isde.ie 60

www.marine.ie/home/services/researchvessels



Even though all of these sites have open data, they are not seamless. This will be an issue to be explored using the SmartOpenData platform and to evaluate its seamless access and mashability of sources for researchers.

2.2 Slovakian Pilot

Name of pilot: Environmental data reuse

Author: Martin Tuchyňa

Date last modified: 17.07.2014



There are two main outcomes addressed within the Slovakian Environmental data reuse pilot. First one is aiming to investigate possibilities to improve search for environmental geospatial data. Second outcome is related to the challenges related with creation of spatial linked data and their further re-use.

Whilst achieving abovementioned outcomes main considerations will be laid on support of interoperability standards, consistency with on-going related initiatives (INSPIRE, eGovernment, open data) and response from the stakeholders.

2.2.2 Reasons


Significant amount of geospatial data is being created and made available across the world via net of the nets - Internet. On the same time, the use of this information is limited because of various reasons. One of them is accessibility of such information as often these resources are not documented sufficiently with their metadata. Therefore this kind of information is not visible through discovery engines designed for example within the framework of spatial data infrastructures. At the same time, this information is not visible also for the users of semantic technologies. For that reason sub-pilot “Spatial Web Crawler” has been designed in order to allow users search for this kind of geo-resources.

In order to fully explore the potential of environmental data, making this kind of information available as linked data will strengthen the possibility to use this information content in new domains and applications. At the same time deployment of this second sub-pilot will help to better understand the benefits of new semantic web data management paradigm within the team of project partner.


There are two basic possible scenarios:

1. Life will be the same as before project came into its life.



2. There will be at least one institution in the Slovakian environmental domain with concrete experience, established technology framework and last but not least knowledge, what is the semantic web, linked data, ontologies and potential of the internet capable make humans’ life easier and hopefully better.

Main problems observed so far in connection to this pilot can be summarised as follows:

• Lack of experience, knowledge and expertise with linked data concepts and semantic technologies

• Low level of interoperability among the domain specific technologies and standards with the main stream ones

• Limited awareness about the potential of spatial digital content and functionality

• Absence of geospatial enabled functionalities within the main stream web search engines

• Issues related with metadata creation and maintenance

• Access to linked (where possible open) geo and non-geo data resources

• Difficulties to find evidence of linkage spatial and non spatial data resources

• Limited implementations combining geo data resources from various domains

• Availability of the easy to use tools for data transformation, publication, discovery, visualization and further processing

• Lack of attractive use cases and apps showing the added value to currently using approaches

• Most of the stakeholders still slightly prefer application programming interfaces (APIs) and XML to RDF for data access

• Stakeholder’s support facilities, providing advice/help desk/knowledge sharing in deployment and maintenance of semantic technologies and linked data

2.2.3 Options


and research”.

Considering the current situation Slovakian pilot is aiming to target, there have been identified at minimum following three options:

1. Doing nothing

This option will freeze current situation with all related consequences.

Pros: No additional resources and investment is needed

Cons: Potential to improve problems described in previous chapter is completely eliminated

2. Executing activities related to the pilot without any support from SmartOpenData

project



Technology maturation and societal changes are creating direct and indirect influence and need to start addressing above mentioned problems. This option would therefore probably happen also if SmartOpenData project could not exist, but under completely different circumstances (from content, organisational, temporal as well as socio-economical perspectives).

Pros: Less resources allocation needed

Cons: Longer time of implementation and absence of knowledge from the partners in SmartOpenData consortium

3. Running pilot as proposed in SmartOpenData Description of the Work

This scenario represents the best option as problems identified can be better addressed in cooperation of knowledge and experience exchange directly through the consortium partners as well as user groups extending the stakeholder interaction framework also on national level across the significant amount of the countries.

Pros: Sharing the knowledge and possibility to allocate resources to implement pilot within the time span of the project implementation.

Cons: Same risks identified bellow.


• New knowledge and experience gained (Skilled expets, information about the relevant use cases, tools, methodologies, guidlines, courses, trainings)

• New linked open geo and non-geo data (Amount of transformed existing relational data resources)

• Validation of the proposed use cases (Evaluation of the success of implemented use cases through the pilot)

• New web apps developed (Amount of apps developed within the pilot, project as well apps identified and collected in SmartOpenData Knowledge Base)

• New data, services and metadata discovered across heterogenic technologic platforms like Spatial data infrastructures, main, deep web (Statistics from tests comparing results of standard search outcomes with those using principles deployed by pilot solution)

• Increased awareness about the use of linked open geo data and semantic technologies on national level (Outcomes of interaction with the stakeholders via User groups)

• Strengthen of existing and establishment of new technology and domain focused communities and networks (Amount of identified related communities and networks on the beginning and end of the project)

2.2.5 Key Risks





Risk


Impact

(Estimate 1-5)

Probability

(Estimate 1-5)

Severity


Risk Response


Absence of the metadata for the geo data resources

4 3 12 Creating and update of metadata for data released by the Slovak pilot.

Low harmonisation of metadata structure

3 4 12 Deployment of metadata schema translations for main geo data and open data metadata standards

Incomplete metadata records

2 3 6 Validation of existing metadata records for dataset used in Slovak pilot and based on the validation results relevant metadata will be completed

Limited implementations of discovery tools for linked geo data

4 4 16 Investigation of existing solutions will take place and based on that the best suitable option will be taken.

Low experience with relational geo data transformation into the linked data structure

3 4 12 Appropriate knowledge exchange activities will take place (meetings, workshops, brainstorming) in order to improve skills and experience

Absence of common approach and complexity of the relational geo data into linked data structure

5 4 20 Monitoring of identified approaches will have to take place during the whole project implementation to ensure the most appropriate approach will be taken

Suitability of existing ontologies

4 3 12 Selection of the ontologies will be consulted within the consortium as well as with relevant stakeholders to ensure most relevant ontology will be used or if not identified, developed

Low stakeholder’s feedback on pilot

5 3 15 Appropriate communication will have to take place in order to clearly explain the purpose of the



implementation pilot and collect the stakeholder’s feedback for its fine tuning.

Table 4 Slovakian Pilot risks evaluation



time.


Cost and benefits foreseen with SK pilot implementation:

Costs:

*Direct costs related to:

Pilot analysis

Collection of requirements

Data and metadata preparation and transformation

Underlying architecture implementation

Applications development

* Indirect:

Costs occurred on side of stakeholders investing their time, effort and knowledge to

Participate on User groups activities

Benefits

*Direct benefits related to:

Provision of direct evidence about usage of innovative technologies and approaches

New knowledge and expertise in Open Data, Linked Data and Semantic

Technologies

Increased value of the experts on the labour market

* Indirect:

Possibility to link existing geo data with new non-geo data and geo data from new

Domains

Support of open data movement

Increased awareness about the potential of linked data and semantic technologies



2.2.7 Evaluation


Stakeholders will be invited to shape the development of the pilot already from the beginning of the second year of project implementation (beginning of 2015) via User grous activities. After conclusion of first iteration of the pilots stakeholders will be informed via communication channels defined in Communication plan of User groups framework with aim to attract their attention and possibly collect the input for pilot fine tuning for final iteration of pilots.


The achievements will be demonstrated through the following communication channels:

• D 5.2 First iteration of the pilots deliverable

• D 5.3 Second iteration of the pilots deliverable

• SmartOpenData project website and social network channels (LinkedIn, Twitter)

• Slovak SmartOpenData project website (to be developed in order to communicate information on national level)

• Meetings, workshops, conferences and other SmartOpenData Knowledge Base events (hackathons, meet - ups)

2.3 Spanish-Portuguese Pilot

Name of pilot: Spanish pilot

Author: Luis Rodríguez & Gregorio Urquía

Last modified: 17 July 2014



This pilot geographically comprises the municipalities of Allariz and Maceda, in the region of Galicia, Northwest Spain. Area management is mainly based on the forest issues. Tourism and urban planning in this area are secondary.



Figure 2 Location of the Maceda-Allariz area

The existing stakeholders are forest owners, foresters, public administrations, seed-harvesting companies and plant and seed nurseries. Such stakeholders take part in an action chain which starts with the selection of the best species for a given plot and ends with the harvesting of seeds after having determined the location for such harvest.

The main concern for owners and foresters is knowing which species is most suitable for a land plot. Then they need to find out where they can get the seeds for that particular species. Obviously, they can resort to seed nurseries, such as the one in Maceda, participating in the pilot, but they can also make use of public seedbeds. These are known as Admission Units, and are controlled by the administration. They cannot be visualized online, so a public officer must be contacted in order to know which are accessible and where they are located. Additionally, seed nurseries must be contacted in order to find out which seeds are available, in what amount and in which quality.

Figure 3 Previous scheme of the timber process in the studied area

The graph above shows the different stakeholders and their position in the stages of timber production. We will provide below a list of the uses we will work on:



1. Selection of most suitable species for the owner's or forester's land plot. 2. Selection of public seedbed, also known as Admission Unit, based on the species and its

availability. 3. Selection of seed nursery, based on species, qualities, stock and proximity. Species selection today is mostly based on experience or intuition. It is not possible to use environmental data due to they are not accessible, making them difficult to obtain. The paperwork required for seed harvesting in the designated seedbeds and their selection is analog, i.e. not digital.

The desired outcome is that this process becomes easier and cheaper by means of making all relevant information at each stage of the process more accessible.

2.3.2 Reasons

Why is this pilot – product – app being considered?

Description of the reasons.



The main problem within the process is the lack of public information available for all stakeholders, as the Admission Units and their availability cannot be visualized and the seed stock and quality available at seed nurseries cannot be consulted.

For instance, let's say an owner or forester needs to get some seeds. This person will need to know which seed nurseries or public seedbeds (Admission Units) are available and their location. In the case of nurseries, it is easier to find this information, but for seedbeds it is much more difficult, due to this information is not accessible and also because the person would need to find out the availability for each Admission Unit. For this purpose, the user must contact a public officer and provide him/her with a formal request in order to receive information on the availability on the date chosen by the owner or forester. Additionally, the public officer must fill in a form on paper in order to collect the details of all visitors. Actually, a foreman must visit the public seedbed to make sure that seeds are harvested in the right amount. During such field trip all relevant forms must be filled in with the harvesting details: date, place, amount, seed, harvesting company, etc. This results in clearly burdensome processes. The location of Admission Units and their availability for harvesting could be accessible online. Additionally, such information could be updated and the details collected by the foreman when visiting the seedbeds could also be made available. This way, any change in the status or information on any of the Admission Units would be immediately accessible and available to any person who needed it.

As an additional problem, this administrative process is being carried out at a local level, not at a national level. Eventually, Spanish Administration receives all this information from Autonomous Communities but this means a duplication of efforts due to the absence of a unified dataset and the lack of information sharing between National and Autonomous instances.



Figure 4 Variable query for a plot and result showing recommended species

Another issue is the lack of analytical information when selecting the species. As explained above, foresters and owners usually select the species they will plant in their plot based on their experience or intuition. They do not have any information or analytical data available which define the most recommendable species for their land. In this regard, a map showing the recommended species distribution considering several variables could be made available. Such variables could be geology, weather (temperatures, rainfall), potential vegetation, orientation, gradient, etc.

An interesting feature that could be implemented is offering, in an accessible manner, the stock availability at seed nurseries in real time. This way, owners and foresters would choose the nursery most convenient to their interests, thus saving time and money.

There are several and numerous studies regarding forest genetic resources management that indicate the best way to proceed with the main forest species, regions of origin and the highest quality seed as admission units in each case. Anyway, these studies are more difficult to check and often interpreted by users without the necessary training and knowledge. On the other hand, when these studies are available, they usually are cumbersome and their consultation and seek is slow.

Besides, this is an annual process which requires advance planning to collect adequate seed, to produce and serve at the right time the best product for a parcel. All these issues prevent a correct reforestation process due to the current model is based on intuitive decisions that don’t pay attention to relevant factors: species, origin region, seed quality, production planning, best time of planting. The result of this lack of planning is a worst use of forest genetic resources and a decline in forest production.

The point is that all data should be made available to everyone and the process should be made less burdensome.

In brief, the necessary data and services should be made available to the stakeholders in order to make the process easier. This is the goal we pursue with this pilot, as well as to make sure such resources can be used by potential stakeholders in the future.



2.3.3 Options

List of options based on the reasons above, including “do nothing” and “zero investment

and research”.


Why have we come up with this solution?

Basically, since they are mainly analog processes, there is sufficient leeway to improve and generate benefits. When we refer to “benefits” we mean saving time and money.

As mentioned in the above examples, not all processes are digitalized. Obviously, they are not accessible online either. Not even cold data on existing admission units are accessible online.

Options in the event of needing to select the right species for a land plot:

1. Make available online the visualization of related layers, such as geology, weather, orientation, gradient, etc.

2. Make available online the layer showing all land plots (plot layer) and a layer showing the recommended species distribution based on related layers mentioned before.

3. Make available online the plot layer, where the user can click on the relevant plot and only receive the recommended species for such plot, using the related layers mentioned before for the calculation.

Options in the event of needing to select an admission unit to get seeds:

1. Make available online a list including all Admission Units. 2. Make available online all Admission Units which have the species selected by the

user available. 3. Make available online all Admission Units which have the species selected by the

user available and update all information in real time using mobile devices operated by foremen.

Options in the event of needing to use seed nursery stocks:

1. Make available online a list of available seed nurseries and existing stock. 2. Make available online a list of available seed nurseries and existing stock for the

species selected by the user. 3. Make available online a list of the closest seed nursery available and the existing

stock for the species selected by the user.

Pros and cons in the event of needing to select the species:

1. Case 1. Pros: allows to manage all information for the entire region. Cons: not very appropriate for non-advanced user profiles.

2. Case 2. Pros: allows viewing all recommended species for the plots in the entire region. Query freedom. Cons: The layers showing the origin of recommended species cannot be viewed. It may not be intuitive for users who are not familiarized with computers.



3. Case 3. Pros: allows getting a direct result showing the recommended species for each land plot. Clear interface. Cons: Too guided. Little freedom. It may not be intuitive for users who are not familiarized with computers.

Pros and cons in the event of needing to select the admission unit to get seeds:

1. Case 1. Pros: allows managing admission units for different species, i.e. all possibilities. Cons: not appropriate for non-advanced user profiles.

1. Case 2. Pros: clear visualization, only with available units. Cons: Somewhat guided. It may not be intuitive for users who are not familiarized with computers.

2. Case 3. Pros: clear visualization, only with available units. Quick data update. Digitalization of a bureaucratic process. Cons: Somewhat guided. It may not be intuitive for users who are not familiarized with computers. More complex to develop.

Pros and cons in the event of seed nursery stocks:

2. Case 1. Pros: allows to manage all possibilities. Freedom. Cons: not appropriate for non-advanced user profiles.

3. Case 2. Pros: clearer visualization, only displaying seed nurseries which have stock for a species but with different quality levels. Cons: Somewhat guided. It may not be intuitive for users who are not familiarized with computers.

4. Case 3. Pros: very clear visualization, only displaying the best selection. Cons: Guided. It may not be intuitive for users who are not familiarized with computers. More complex to develop.



There are two areas where we expect to generate benefits with the solution proposed:

• Firstly, we aim at optimizing the process. Specifically, as we have already explained, in terms on time and money.

• Secondly, we will make available a database made up of digital data for future use or to improve processes.

The savings in time and money will depend on each stakeholder, so it is difficult to provide an estimate. We could assume that a forester already knows specifically which species to select:

- How much is the risk of selecting the right species? That would be a measurable benefit. - What savings do we estimate from not having to make a phone call to know which

admission units are available for a specific species? - What savings in time and money do we estimate from not having to travel to make the

query with the administration in person? - What savings in time and money could the administration have in terms of time spent by

the public officer in the query?



We must consider the number of online visits to make a query on each of the use cases. This way, we can quantify the benefit and the users served.

2.3.5 Key Risks



Risk


Impact

(Estimate 1-5)

Probability

(Estimate 1-5)

Severity


Risk Response


Not finding an adequate method to get the recommended species.

3 1 3 Find already tested and existing methods such as Climatforest

Administration in charge of admission units not accepting work digitalization

2 4 8 Make existing admission units available online anyway, and use seed nurseries as an alternative.

Not accepting stock data sharing

2 3 6 Offer seed nurseries an information gradient: Species Stock � Qualities � Amounts

Pilot not meeting the needs of stakeholders

5 1 5 Obtain needs directly. From scratch and based on WP2 we have had a participant-driven development.

SmartOpenData needs and validation may not meet participants and/or user needs.

4 2 8 The assessment is made based on the user requirements document of WP2. Participants needs in the pilot should be analyzed to determine which and how can be addressed using SmOD and be able to work on them.

No service sustainability or continuity

5 1 5 The use of the service, its adoption and reuse by third parties.

Table 5 Spanish-Portuguese Pilot risks evaluation





time.


At first costs will be very low, as they would be limited to the server costs and costs generated by updating data on availability, harvesting information, stocks, etc. However, such update was already being done, so it will become cheaper and quicker when processed digitally.

Benefits are difficult to estimate, as we have already explained. However, the most measurable ones are very much related to cost savings. Additionally, we must consider potential benefits of having digital and open data.

2.3.7 Evaluation



There are very clear ways to determine whether the pilot has been successful:

1. Cooperation to implement this process and/or adopting it. 2. Firstly, if an online service has been provided for in order to make queries on the most

suitable species, positive queries on admission units, their availability and data update, and queries on seed nurseries, stocks and their updates.

3. Number of visits to these services. 4. Number of visits to these services versus traditional analog queries.

Participants will know if the intended outcomes have been achieved with a fifth point: visits to each of the query services versus analog queries. Such comparison can be easily made using figures of previous years.



2.4 Czech Pilot

Name of pilot: Forest sustainability pilot

Author: Radim Adolt & Jan Bojko & Marek Mlčoušek

Date last modified: 6.8.2014



The pilot focuses on the implementation of SmartOpenData (SmOD) infrastructure within the Czech National Forest Inventory (CZNFI) www-portal development. The portal itself will provide users with current and historical information on forests and Czech landscape in general. Our intention is to incorporate SmOD technologies into the portal infrastructure to increase accessibility and usage of CZNFI results and information. On one hand, we expect that this approach will contribute to the general awareness about the Czech NFI project, its reliable and up-to-date results, and on the other hand increase the number of applications (both foreseen and spontaneous) by means of combining CZNFI results with other data and information sources. Details on why this pilot is needed are explained in following sections.

2.4.2 Reasons


Since second world-war the information on Czech forests used to be obtained within enterprise level forest management planning. Till know this is the mainstream approach utilized by Czech Ministry of agriculture, which uses (summarized) forest management plans (SFMP) for following purposes:

• formulation and evaluation of forestry and related sector policies

• elaboration of an annual report on Czech forests and forestry – publicly available (http://eagri.cz/public/web/en/mze/publications/publications-forest)

• international reporting on Czech forests and forestry sector

• administration of forestry subsidies

However between 2001 and 2004 the first statistical-sound National Forest Inventory (CZNFI1) has been carried out, which brought quite surprising results, until that point of time, quite unexpected. Among the main CZNFI1 findings there were the following:

• total forest area is about 2 800 000 ha, which is by some 160 000 ha more than reported by SFMP for the same point of time

• mean per hectare growing stock amounts to 332 m3/ha, that is by 30% higher than so far reported according to SFMP

• total growing stock exceeds the SFMP figures by almost 40% (note the higher CZNFI1 figure on total forest area)

The range of variables assessed during stand-wise (compartment-wise) inventories (SFMP are based on these) is rather limited to provide full spectrum of information on Czech and



any other country’s forests and landscape. Even the above fundamental figures differ so much between CZNFI1 and SFMP that one can’t avoid asking whether the above informational needs can be met by SFMP data. Since the revolution year 1989, more than then 40% of forest land has been subject to restitution process and some years later the elaboration of forest management plans has been transferred from state to private businesses. This creates a situation in which:

• the quality (accuracy) forest management plans varies a lot depending on land owner and the contractor

• the forest management plans are a property of the land owner not the state, which generates legal obstacles on the usage of the forest management plan data (publication of non-aggregated, land-owner level data is generally not possible)

From the above reasoning, one can clearly see that, based on SFMP data, it is not viable to build and maintain an informational system which would:

• be open to all potential users

• provide reliable, unbiased and up-to date information on forests and forestry

• could be linked freely with other publicly available data, which has the potential to generate new information, research and/or also business opportunities

Results of CZNFI one were published in 2005 within the former version of ÚHÚL web site (structure of .html pages containing a broad selection of results). In addition there was a CZNFI1 monograph published (this included only results on the NUT1 level unlike the WWW pages that included NUTS3 level results as well). All in all, the way how CZNFI results were published and maintained until now does not offer any possibilities to effectively search, access, exchange or link the CZNFI information sources with other data by means of contemporary technologies (or any technology foreseen for the next couple of years). This of course limits the adoption of CZNFI project and any applications, which could be preferably based on this information source.

In 2015 ÚHÚL will finalize second NFI project (CZNFI2), which will widen the CZNFI1 information by dynamic variables and trends e.g. amount of wood harvested, amount of growth, changes in forest cover, changes in forest structure etc. With two NFI cycles completed, one could start shaping the structure of new, national forest and forestry information system, which could replace the current practice based on SFMP data.


If NFI results and information is not presented and made accessible appropriately (including the SmOD infrastructure) following has to be expected:

• forest and forestry related information (at the national level) will be based on forest management plans data, which has negative consequences (outlined above)

• public sector (ministries, universities, research institutions) will not have an effective access to relevant, unbiased information - this will prevent from the development of new opportunities for the forestry sector (research, effective policy formulation)



• private companies will not have any reliable and easily accessible information sources to support their business-decisions, intuition and practical experience can’t be a fully-fledged substitute for reliable information

• general public will not have access to unbiased and up-to date information on forests and forestry, awareness about the importance of forests and forestry sector will rather decrease

• general public will not be educated by an appropriate communication of the forest and forestry current state and development

• non-governmental organization will have no access to relevant information on forests, which could limit their positive role in formulating policies supporting sustainable forest management, their activities might be even focused in wrong directions, which, in the end, might even harm the whole forestry sector

• the NFI project itself might be harmed, if the prevailing perception is like “it has brought just another figures but these are not useful, because they found no application” – to be honest, this is the current (post CZNFI1) attitude of many stakeholders (some forest owners, managers, including some state officials and even political parties)

2.4.3 Options


and research”.


1. Doing nothing

This option does not exist in fact, as the pilot itself is not a standalone activity - it has been planned and launched in connection to CZNFI2 project, that somehow has to address the same or at least to large extent similar issues. Continuation of the current suboptimal “system” based on SFMP solely would be the immediate consequence because the existence of NFI results itself does not mean that CZNFI2 will have any desirable impact on forestry sector (experience from CZNFI1). Doing nothing scenario would not save money nor create any opportunities for anybody. The CZNFI2 project would not be appropriately presented and a worse starting position for CZNFI3 would be also among the product (we want to switch from periodic to continuous NFI inventory system from 2016 on, this requires political support and many successful negotiations).

2. Zero investment and research or missing SmOD infrastructure

This option could save some money and effort which might be spent for the implementation of a non-mature approach. The risk and overall impact of this situation is however low in our opinion, because the SmOD project is a collaborative effort and we trust in technical capacities of the consortium. SmOD infrastructure will be one of the components of the whole system being developed for CZNFI. One possible consequence might be that the solution created independently on the SmOD project could not be simply upgraded to enable the SmOD foreseen features. 2. Full implementation of SmOD infrastructure

Seems to be optimal way to go ahead, because the effort needed to implement SmOD infrastructure seems to be marginal in comparison to what has to be done to appropriately present and share results of CZNFI projects. However, the SmOD infrastructure will extend



the accessibility as well as the usage possibilities. We can see the added value of the by SmOD enabled possibility to search and hit our data and combine them with other information sources - by means of semantic technologies. This extends the usability of CZNFI results beyond the scope we are able explicitly deal with in the moment of the CZNFI portal design.



In general the benefit is the contrary of what would happen if the Czech pilot is not carried out – see the second part of “Reasons” section. This means that the currently far from optimum state will be replaced by a true system, that really works, provides unbiased and up-to date information, can be shared and communicated without legal restrictions. Completing the Czech pilot however does not necessarily bring these benefits. We are realistic and do not expect the situation will change overnight. Since the provision of forest and forestry related information is a complex issue, several years will be needed until the new system is fully operational and accepted by stakeholders and all expected users. The pilot should create a prototype, which will be further evolved.

Although, indirect benefits referenced in the previous text are prevailing, one might also argue that, subsidies paid by Czech ministry of Agriculture for the elaboration of forest management plans could be reduced in the future if the information system on forests is based on CZNFI data. Between 2009 and 2013 (5 year period) the total amount of financial support was 295.6 million CZK (10.8 million EUR) with decreasing tendency (3.5 million EUR in 2009, 1.2 million EUR in 2013). One of the reasons why the amount of public funding decreased was that Czech state forests (approximately half of the total forest area managed according to forest management plans) stopped using these subsidies in 2011. Of course, one should not expect that this amount of money will be 100% saved after a successful implementation of the whole system. On one hand, this is not the aim of SmOD or CZNFI project, and on the other hand, reasons why these subsidies exist are not only those mentioned in the first enumeration under “Reasons” section. However, one should know that the current level of subsidies is as high as the direct costs for the elaboration of a new forest management plan. This situation seems hardly justifiable (personal standpoint).

2.4.5 Key Risks



Risk


Impact

(Estimate 1-5)

Probability

(Estimate 1-5)

Severity


Risk Response


Not well chosen technological platform which would lead us to troubles in future sustainability of

2 3 6 To choose as much as possible our current (stable) technologies and use well tested and recommended software, which will come up after SmOD project evaluation. NFI has to know some



the portal. software alternatives to the chosen SmOD infrastructure, and then we can avoid probable problems.

NFI data with SmOD model not usable for the stakeholders.

4 4 16 Proposed use cases can show possible usage of the NFI data. Well described NFI in general and the results using the metadata and other description in two or more languages on the CZNFI portal.

Too complicated data model of the results, unreachable in reasonable measure of the time due the size of the NFI datasets.

2 2 4 A database of the results has to be designed with broader discussion among experts as well as defined in accordance with the possible future technologies like CMS, RDF and SPARQL enablers, operating system platform and so on. Only this approach can avoid future huge time consuming infrastructure changes.

The output data formats (csv, xls, xml/rdf) inappropriately chosen and not interoperable with other government bodies.

3 3 9 Meetings with other representatives of the government bodies have been organized during the project and common approach have been discussed. Our organisation took part of official Czech GeoInfostrategy meetings which could have impact on Czech legislation process. The NFI has to follow this strategy in order to reduce the impact of this point.

Low metadata information value and misinterpretation can cause incorrect data use.

4 2 8 During the SmOD project the metadata usage should be discussed and used more often, then in the past. The NFI results are very sophisticated; therefore it should be well described by forestry experts on CZNFI portal. Moreover harmonised metadata description with INSPIRE or DCAT profiles will decrease the risk of bad interoperability of the metadata.



Sustainability and suitability of ontologies for the forestry sector.

2 4 8 Current status of the ontology on the web is very disputable for government usage, because lack of official data sources endpoints. The NFI will try to share and spread the knowledge about LOD among other Czech organisation and the number of data providers might increase at the end.

The Government will not approve continuation of the NFI activities and sustainability of the whole project results.

5 2 10 To some extent, it can be influenced by high quality project results and presentation at the Czech Government, however reach this task might be very difficult because it has strong dependency on the political decision.

Table 6 Czech Pilot risks evaluation



time.


Costs

The costs for the pilot project are only a smaller portion of the overall costs that we foresee for the full implementation and further maintenance of the CZNFI portal. Costs outside the scope of the pilot will be fully covered by ÚHÚL’s internal budget reserved for the CZNFI2 and ongoing projects. In this light the cost analysis limited to the pilot project only seems marginal. For this moment and in terms of monetary units we can’t provide more detail on cost than what has been included as person-months during the SmOD project preparation (see DoW document). Anyway, we expect our costs for SmOD infrastructure implementation would be much higher if we could not collaborate with partners of the SmOD consortium.

Benefits

Benefits were described under “Benefits expected” section. Let us comment shortly on the balance of benefits and costs. Since the pilot project is being planned and implemented as a part of an almost mandatory task (an effective publication and provision of CZNFI results), the cost for the SmOD pilot becomes virtually zero from our perspective. Optionally we



might calculate only costs related to the implementation of SmOD infrastructure on the top of the CZNFI portal. This would be more realistic way of handling this cost/benefit issue.

2.4.7 Evaluation


We are now in the second phase of the national NFI and the results are very awaited by public, SMEs, foresters and others. In connection with this SmOD outcomes will be also visible a lot. The results will be presented through CZNFI portal with general description of the NFI project, moreover third party portals, social networks or communication channels should link to the content of the portal, for example project news, description of the outcomes, new data presented and more. We hope that the stakeholders will come up without our extra effort, because of high value of the NFI data and information, which could help them to achieve their goals.

• Stakeholders will be informed by: Publishing information in forestry journals

• CZNFI, UHUL and Ministry of Agriculture portals

• Social networks

• SOD project deliverables

• Meetings at the national and also EU level How will the pilot demonstrate this achievement?

Main focus of the UHUL work with help of the SmOD infrastructure is to present NFI results through modern web portal. Achievement will be then demonstrated using standard web estimators as number of page visits, number of keywords searched, link shared and so on, collected on the CZNFI portal and also on the web page of the Ministry of Agriculture, main UHUL website and other linked social networks.

NFI and SmOD outcomes will be presented on several national and international meetings, as well as feedback from the users will be welcomed and used for enhancing the whole system. On top of that the achievements will be demonstrated using SmOD deliverables.

Figure 5 UHUL-FMI web portal



2.5 Italian Pilot

Name of pilot: ARPA Sicilia

Author: Giovanni Vacante

Date last modified: 07/08/2014


The ARPA pilot will focus on identifying the added value of Linked Open Data from a bottom-up validation of benefits, through a participatory Living Lab approach in which a range of stakeholders themselves a) contribute different types of data, b) explore and identify the relations between different kinds of data held by different stakeholders, c) formalise those relationships into semantic frameworks, and then d) validate the SmOD platform’s representation of the dynamics and realities they are interested in through LOD features and functionalities.

In so doing, the move to a LOD based system is expected to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of ARPA’s specific mission, which is gathering and analysing information of environmental monitoring data. Currently monitoring and analysis activities are carried out by the provincial offices and brought together by the central agency for publication on-line and production of reports for various purposes. These reports then provide the basis for both institutional activities (planning, release of permits, EIA, ESA etc.) as well as for analysis by citizens, NGOs and other concerned bodies. This more limited scenario constitutes the baseline objective of the pilot, with the broader objective defined at the outset as a more open variable, highly dependent on the technical, social and institutional innovation trajectories of the stakeholders participating in the pilot activities.

The pilot will focus on monitoring the quality of air and water, which depends on information coming from ARPA’s provincial offices but also integrates data coming from provincial, municipal and other authorities. This will involve the engagement of these mostly institutional stakeholders to define common standards (data models, technical standards, standards of practice and procedure) so that each agency can publish their information as some form of Open Data, allowing ARPA to integrate the data following current practice of analysis as an intermediate step, and then into the SmOD platform environment as a demonstration of the benefits of the LOD approach as the final objective.

This approach can, in theory at least, directly scale up from the “baseline” pilot scenario of inter-institutional collaboration to the “broad” pilot scenario of a “territory of data”. This broader level involves extending the scenario to those holding data related to or affected by air and water quality (including in principle individual citizens and their families), especially as regards the causes and impacts of pollution. This would include the health system, data on industrial and agricultural activities, as well as data coming from citizen and environmental groups.

This extension of the scope of stakeholder engagement also means an enrichment of the type of data in question and an extension of the sphere of possible relationships between datasets. As a consequence, this will lead to an enrichment of the semantic framework



capable of modelling and describing those relationships, from the relatively stable ontologies of the technical/environmental domain to broader areas of social, cultural, and economic activities. One of the objectives of the pilot is thus also to explore how these semantic relations based on human communication and interaction with data can be “captured” bottom-up and fed into frameworks such as those used in the SmOD platform to model relationships between datasets.

The specific domain and functionalities required will be defined together with the pilot stakeholders following the Living Lab process and the degree of engagement of different stakeholders. From the ARPA side, it has been decided to focus on air and water quality, with at least two pilot settings, such as the southern coast of the City of Palermo, the Ustica marine reserve, the Trapani coast, the Aspra/Bagheria coast (including the CIS protected area of Capo Zafferano.

The starting list of stakeholders contacted for participation in the pilot activities (and invited to an Open Data workshop held in Palermo on July 23rd, 2014) includes participants from the following organisations:

Organisation Explanation/translation

Prefettura Prefecture

Capitaneria di porto di Palermo (guardia costiera)

Port authority (coastguard)

Dipartimento Reg.le dell'acqua e dei rifiuti Regional dept of water and waste

Osservatorio Epidemiologico (dipartimento attività sanitaria)

EpidemologicalObservatory

U.O.C. Epidemiologia Clinica con Registro Tumori AOUP "P.Giaccone" palermo - c/o DPT Scienze per la promozione della salute UNIPA - Registro tumori (Palermo e Provincia)

Registry of cancer with the University of Palermo

Laboratorio di Sanità Pubblica - azienda USL n.6 Palermo

Health care agency

Dipartimento regionale dell'ambiente (Programmazione UE, Servizio 1 VIA – VAS, Servizio 7 - Pareri ambientali, servizio 4 (protezione patrimonio naturale)

Regional Environment Dept (Regional programming, EIA, SEA service, Environmental opinions service, Electrical pollution service, Natural resources service)

Dipartimento del Territorio (Area2 interdipartimentale S.I.T.R.)

Regional SDI service (SITR)

ISPRA ( Istituto superiore per la protezione e la ricerca ambientale)

Environmental protection agency (national level)

UNIPA University of Palermo

CNR Area della ricerca di Palermo National Research Centre



Provincia o consorzi comuni Palermo Province and Municipal consortia in the Palermo area

ATO 1 Idrico - Palermo Water management authority

Ordine Professionale degli agronomi Agronomists’ Professional Order

Ordine regionale dei geologi di Sicilia Geologists’ Professional Order

Ordine nazionale dei Biologi - delegazione Reg.le

Regional delegation of the Biologists’ Professional Order

Ordine degli Ingegneri della Sicilia Engineers’ Professional Order of Sicily

Ordine Interprovinciale dei chimici della Sicilia

Sicilian inter-provincial Chemists’ Professional Order

WWF - Palermo World Wildlife Fund

Legambiente Sicilia Environmental NGO, Sicilianchapter

Italia Nostra - sez. Palermo Landscape Heritage NGO, Palermo chapter

ADASC e altre che producono rich accesso atti (associazione per la difesa dell'ambiente e della salute dei cittadini)

Citizens’ Health Protection NGO (and others who request for information)

Comitato dei Cittadini per il bene collettivo Sicilia - c/o Anghelos Centro Studi sulla comunicazione

Citizen’s Common Good Committee

COMUNE DI PALERMO City of Palermo

RAP (EX AMIA) di Palermo Palermo Waste Collection Agency

COMUNE DI TRAPANI City of Trapani

Società di raccolta Rifiuti di Trapani Trapani Waste Collection Agency

Dip. Funzione pubblica (uff.per le attività di coordinamento dei sistemi informativi reg.li e l'attività informatica della regione e della PP.AA.)

National office coordinating IT systems

Dip. Bilancio (Servizio informatica) (forse resp.le della sezuione OPEN Data del sito della Regione)

Regional Finance Dept: Service responsible for regional Open Data portal

Comando del corpo forestale Forestry Agency

Sicilia e servizi IT Provider of the ARPA system

Direzione Generale Offices and services of ARPA at regional level

Struttura Territoriale ARPA di Palermo Territorial ARPA Agency for Palermo

Struttura Territoriale ARPA di Trapani Territorial ARPA

Confederazione italiana agricoltori di sicilia Agricultural Business Association



Confesercenti Sicilia - Sede prov.le Palermo Retail Business Association

ASA Confartigianato sede Artisans’ Business Association

CONFAPI INDUSTRIA SICILIA - SEDE PALERMO

SME Business Association

CONFINDUSTRIA SICILIA Industrial Business Association

C.G.I.L. - Palermo Labour Union

CISL Palermo Labour Union

UIL Sicilia Labour Union

Table 7 Italian Pilot initial list of stakeholders

2.5.2 Reasons

The main reasons behind the pilot regard the “baseline” scenario driving the first level of activities. The extended scenario is more related to methodological and technological research (from a social innovation standpoint) questions that underpin the SmOD project and are thus left as open variables.

In the strictest sense, the information required for the pilot objectives is not exactly lacking, but it arrives late and in non-homogeneous format with a significant effect on its ultimate relevance and usefulness. The Sicilian Region has recently implemented a series of large-scale centralised information systems (ERDF 2007-2013), including a system for the collection and management of laboratory data (LIMS) which is designed to support the activities of ARTA. The Region also has developed in previous years a distributed SDI system, the SITR, although this is not interoperating with the other regional systems such as notably the LIMS; this lack of interoperability is one reason for the relevance of SmOD.

In addition, besides the fact that not all laboratories use the LIMS system in the intended way, there are problems with the management of the system overall due to problems with the IT provider that go beyond the scope of the SmOD project. Since the Regional government rescinded the contract following a series of cost over-runs, system support has been withdrawn and ARPA has difficulties related to ownership and management of the data collection and analysis processes. This series of events has highlighted the relevance of SmOD. Indeed, a shift towards Open Data as the baseline operational principle would hopefully allow to move towards a more dynamic and open system with less technology lock-in, besides allowing to offer a better service to regional stakeholders.

There are political reasons as well behind the definition of the ARPA pilot as a broad alliance of stakeholders. As (almost) always with environmental monitoring there is an effect of “not wanting to know” that leads to under-resourcing ARPA with the necessary staff and personnel (especially in times of crisis and cost-cutting). This has the negative effect of lowering expectations for the relevance and timeliness of the information ARPA produces. This in turn leads to a low quality service and less impact of ARPA’s intended role as a regional agency. By engaging stakeholders in a bottom-up collaboration and making environmental monitoring a collective endeavour, ARPA hopes to reverse this vicious circle and regain a role as a reference point for environment related information.



2.5.3 Options

The do-nothing option is essentially the business as usual “complacency” scenario, but this leads to an unacceptable result of a Regional government that ignores the state of its environment and the impacts of its policies and actions. This is of course against the mission of ARPA, despite the many obstacles to be overcome.

If the necessary resources and political commitment were in place, the main option would be to re-invest in the current centralised LIMS system, regaining control of its functioning and taking the additional steps to “also” publish the information therein as Open Data (LOD in the context of SmOD). This could solve the issues internal to ARPA but would not necessarily address the issue of interoperability with other institutions and sources of data. In other words, it could solve the technical (but not necessarily the institutional) aspects of the “baseline” pilot scenario, but would create a barrier towards the “extended” scenario.

A final option, less performant but more pragmatic, can be to use a simple Open Data platform such as Citadel (www.citadelontheove.eu)61 as an intermediate step between different and incompatible static files from different stakeholders and the LOD platform of SmOD. This would allow integrating and collecting datasets from different providers, independently of the fate of the centralised LIMS system, and even explore how people make their own correlations between datasets as a way of promoting a “culture” of LOD and exploring the possible enhancements to the SmOD semantic framework.

This option allows the recovery of usage of the official LIMS system to proceed without affecting the critical path of the SmOD pilot, or alternatively allows the stakeholders involved to evaluate the potential benefits of a shared Open Data based platform for future implementation. Either way, as the datasets are integrated into the SmOD platform, the different stakeholders will have gained an understanding of the potential of LOD for inter-sectoral insights into the dynamics behind air and water quality, and thus be able to better evaluate the correspondence of the SmOD platform and features to the expectations they construct concerning the LOD scenario.


The main benefit expected is a passage from environmental reports compiled and produced on an annual basis, towards the real-time production of information integrating the data collected and produced by ARPA with that from other sources.

By engaging different stakeholders and integrating the ARPA data with other relevant datasets, it is expected that a broader scope of users and user groups will experience an improved relevance and quality of the ARPA services. This should in turn lead to an improvement in the environmental and territorial policies of local authorities, including instruments such as the EIA, SEA, EES, and VINCA.

The ability to mash up the datasets specifically related to air and water quality with those related to causes and effects brought in by external actors in the extended scenario, would lead to very significant benefits in the ability to increase awareness and take action.

61

The Citadel platform was demonstrated and successfully tested in an “Apps4Dummies” workshop in Palermo, 23 July 2014. The workshop was jointly organized by the Citadel project, the City of Palermo, and ARPA, with the invited participation of SmOD Partner SpazioDati.



In addition, the greater the extent of the Open Data platform (and its usability through LOD), we expect to generate business opportunities for third party providers using the datasets.

2.5.5 Key Risks

The ARPA pilot is essentially using the SmOD scenario and infrastructure to explore the issues of institutional and social innovation related to the willingness and availability of stakeholders to open their data and collaborate around a convergent approach.

The main risks are seen to be related to the data flow, i.e. risks as regards the production and release of data and those regarding the use of data. Since these risks are directly related to motivation and engagement of a broad community of stakeholders, the Living Lab approach of engaging stakeholders in the co-design of the scenarios of practice is seen to be the most effective methodology.

Risk


Impact

(Estimate 1-5)

Probability

(Estimate 1-5)

Severity


Risk Response


Data providers don’t want to collaborate or open up their data.

5 3 15 The Living Lab methodology is designed to engage different stakeholders and see the benefits of collaboration towards shared (and mutually owned) goals.

Data not sufficiently promoted to be used by stakeholders

4 3 12 The Open Data paradigm depends on the fact that stakeholders other than the data owner make creative use of that data in combination with other sources. This is the demand-driven approach towards opening up data, which again brings us back to the Living Lab methodology. In addition, this provides a good platform for dissemination, together with more traditional means.

Difficulties in access and use of the Regional information services.

3 3 9 This obstacle can be temporarily addressed through the collaboration of SmOD partners and use of the Citadel and SmOD platforms and tools.

Table 8 Italian Pilot risks evaluation




If costs were the only issue, then the current regional IT system would not be the problem that it is. In strict terms, the economic and financial costs for the ARPA pilot are covered not only by the SmOD budget, but by the essential contributions of SmOD technology partners as well as the collaboration with the other SmOD pilots to ensure the necessary tools and methods.

The real costs involved in the ARPA pilot are in terms of social and institutional innovation, i.e. changing patterns of understanding and behaviour. For this, it is necessary to demonstrate the direct benefits to individual stakeholders together with their carrying out the requested changes in practice and technology use. Benefits proposed according to some theoretical future gain (in efficiency, cost savings, whatever) do not modify short-term behaviour.

This is the logic behind the conception of the ARPA pilot, which is based on two main principles:

• Stakeholder engagement from day one, building a shared understanding of common goals and benefits, with a deep co-design approach capable of actually listening to their needs and building upon them.

• An incremental approach to the technologies, using simple technologies for the first cycles of action-evalaution-benefit in order to construct a “demand-pull” adoption of the more sophisticated SmOD platform.

If the Living Lab approach is successful, this sparks off a virtuous circle of engagement and benefit perception that drives the whole innovation process.

2.5.7 Evaluation

Process evaluation, based on a continuous qualitative self-analysis of goals, objectives, and progress towards those goals, is an integral part of the Living Lab methodology. As a part of this process, the identification of indicators helps stakeholders clarify their perceptions of benefits. Some classes of indicators that will be relevant to this pilot, identified on the basis of its general goals and objectives, include:

• Number and variety of data-providing stakeholders engaged and collaborating to a shared data system as an Open System.

• Improvement by ARPA of ownership of its own information systems and information resources.

• Improvements in timeliness and accuracy of ARPA reports.

• Number of data users, registered users, accesses, etc.

• Relationships identified, new insights gained, enrichments of the SmOD semantic framework

• Apps and services developed using the ARPA data on air and water quality.

• Long term: improvements in air and water quality



3 Conclusions

This document has explained the rationale of the pilots using the point of view of the real world use cases defined in SmartOpenData D2.2 User requirements and use cases. Therefore, this document has shown the foreseen impact that will be obtained due to the sharing and exploiting data and information from existing and varied resources.

As an important result, this document offers a first version of the objectives to be evaluated, although these points will be in-depth analyzed in other deliverables as D 6.1 Evaluation plan and D 6.2 User groups set up and analysis.

From all SmartOpenData Pilots, have been obtained the following information:

• A generic overview of the current situation • Alternatives and options studied • Benefits expected • Key risks • Cost/benefits analysis • Pilot results evaluation

This information has been pointed out as a statement of facts explaining the background of the pilot and an explanation about why the pilot must go ahead and what would happen if the pilot was not developed.

Therefore, in this deliverable, the followings issues have been addressed and there is a preliminary answer to the following questions:

• Where are we now? Current situation in the pilots • Where do want to be? What are the pilot goals and benefits that it will offer when

completed • How do we get there? Setting objectives, identifying milestones and outcomes as a

measure of success. How to utilise experience and lessons learnt from previous projects and their pilots.

Likewise, this document could be also used as a concise document underpinning the importance of the pilot and state justifiable reasons for its development, beyond our contractual obligation.

rationale of pilots. evaluation set-up and test...

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