Open ELS project

General

As the official bodies responsible for national cadastre, land registration, geodetic surveying and mapping activities in Europe, EuroGeographics’ members fulfil an essential role providing definitive and detailed geospatial information.

As their independent, international, not-for-profit membership association., EuroGeographics is committed to supporting them as they improve access to this rich source of data. Our 2017-2020 strategy, unanimously approved by members, cemented their commitment to provide access to their data. Members can access the full vision and strategy

We believe there are many benefits for users and for society in having a single access point for international users of harmonised, pan-European, authoritative geospatial information and services.

The Open ELS Project, co-financed by the European Union’s Connecting Europe Facility, demonstrated the potential of a single point of access and offereds the opportunity to try harmonised European open data services from official national sources. It concluded on 30 April 2019 after two years of work by the project partners.

History

Together with a number of members and other partners, EuroGeographics was part of the European Location Framework (ELF) Project co-funded by the European Commission’s Competitiveness & Innovation framework Programme (CIP) Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP).

The collaboration, which ended in October 2016, developed the standards, specifications, tools and technical infrastructure to deliver pan-European geospatial content. This provided a solid foundation on which to develop the Open ELS Project.

The ELF Consortium formally transferred the rights and obligations of the ELF Project to EuroGeographics in June 2017.

Data Supply

How to join European Location Services

  1. Sign the ELS Data provider agreement
  2. Arrange your data and services according to ELS requirements. See specifications, guidance, documentation
  3. Recommended, but not mandatory  – Agree (edge-match) the connecting features along borders with neighboring countries.
  4. Run compliance and performance test. Trigger the INSPIRE validator from the ELS infrastructure.
  5. Fill the service information spreadsheet and send it to Saulius Urbanas

Data delivery to GeoLocator (GN, AD, AU) could be provided as file(s).

If you are providing content for European Location Services or Open ELS, this is a list of important information to support your role as a data supplier:

• European Location Services (ELS) Data Specifications – pdf
• European Location Services(ELS) Service Level Agreement (SLA) – docx
• How to find out more
———-
Status of the ELS web-services, July 2018:

The webinar “Guidance on implementation of cross-border harmonisation”, 10th December 2018

Two webinars on Capacity building and contribution to ELS/OpenELS, 25-26 September 2018.
Slides and links to records

Webinar “Update on progress in ELS Data Supply”, 12 July 2018:

Documentation for Data Providers

This section provides references to the documentation, needed for data providers contributing to ELS and Open ELS. The documents might also be useful for setting up national web-services.

Data and service specifications

Product specifications

Guidance

Open ELS Project

The Open ELS test services, launched at the 2019 Geospatial World Forum, were based on user requirements, in particular those from the European Commission and from the small and medium sized enterprises (SME) engagement programme. They played an important role in demonstrating the value of authoritative open geospatial data.

The Open ELS Project demonstrated the potential of a single point of access and offered the opportunity to try harmonised European open data services from official national sources. The Project also aimed to provide certainty about what is free, charged for and under what terms and conditions. In doing so, it aimed to improve the availability of geospatial information from the public authorities responsible for mapping, cadastre and land registries.

The Project was focused on facilitating access to, and encouraging the take up and use of, this information, and is strongly user orientated with a comprehensive programme of activities for SMEs.

EuroGeographics coordinated the two-year initiative co-financed by the European Union’s Connecting Europe Facility,  working with partners from member organisations in Norway, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Poland and Germany.

The Open ELS project outcomes also included:

  • User orientation, a survey of small and medium sized enterprises (SME), and the idepntification of Open ELS use cases.
  • An appraisal of the potential economic and social benefits of open data from authoritative sources, carried out on our behalf by Deloitte.
  • A policy and legal framework for Open ELS that allows us to use members’ open data for Open ELS and defines the terms and conditions for use and re-use of this data.
  • Members have agreed the Open Data Policy for Open ELS, the Open Use licence, and the ELS Data Provider Agreement.
  • Guidelines for edge-matching and a policy for cross-border harmonisation for our members.
  • Compliance with the Metadata Quality Assurance (MQA) tool of the European Data (EDP) Portal. The Open ELS services metadata are now being harvested by the EDP.

For more information, visit openels.eu

Three animations are also available which explain how the Project defines Open Data, how it can benefit SMEs and how users can access the test services.

Open ELS Project Documentation

Data Supply

Report on Capacity Building and Extension of coverage for Open ELS

The aim of the task “Capacity Building” was to strength the capacities of data providers and candidates to become data providers for Open ELS. It included engagements with NMCAs, gathering information about issues in web-service set-up and identifying gaps in technical capacities. Capacities shall be strengthened in those domains where demands received.

The aim of the task “Extension of coverage” was to bring more data providers amongst EuroGeographics members (NMCAs). The task has been carried by engaging potential data providers and organising joint workshops, bilateral meetings, conferences, webinars, providing consultations by email communication and web tools.

Report and Guidance on Cross-border harmonisation

The aim of the task “Cross-border edge-matching” was to facilitate NMCA Open ELS data providers to harmonise  geospatial data features across international borders. The project team developed the Guidance on implementation of cross-border harmonisation [1], a template for cross border harmonisation [2], supplementing documentation [6], promoted and supported the NMCAs activities utilising the guidance, provided consultations and methodological support.

Report on Open ELS Data Provider Agreement

The aim of this task was to deliver a DPA which included the relevant terms and conditions for Open ELS. The report describes the actions undertaken to deliver the DPA within the Open ELS project.

Report on Open ELS Data Supply Activities

This  report provides information about the completed activities in the  task “Data contributor support”.

Report on Open ELS Regional Gazetteer – Exonyms

About 6,000 exonyms and variant names in current use have been entered into the database of the European Regional Gazetteer Service and the Open ELS Geolocator. These exonyms are situated in 44 European countries and territories and comprise 37 languages in 4 different scripts, including all official languages of the European Union. Essential elements from the management of exonyms of the previous projects EGN and ELF have been integrated into the European Regional Gazetteer.

Technical Infrastructure

EuroRegionalMap Vector Tile – A prototype of a vector tile service using ERM

This document defines the development of European topographic and administrative reference data (ERM) vector tile service at regional level (prototype) and  facilitates visualization.

Report on prototyping a WFS Central Prototype

The ELF project implemented a European spatial information infrastructure, where INSPIRE-based services are provided by each NMCA and are presented through a Showcase Application. Users were managed through a centralized security manager and were offered the opportunity to acquire either a test or development license for interface services. WFS services were implemented by compiling the services into one access point called ‘cascading’ architecture. This decentralized architecture has caused quality deviations and major differences in service response times.

The Open ELS project team tested a centralised architecture where the data (GML files) are uploaded to a centralised database and are offered as a WFS interface. It  also tried to simplify the data model so that services are easier to implement and use.

Report on organising and running the technical Open ELS infrastructure

The ELS technical infrastructure, on which the Open ELS activities operate or are related to, is based on the technical infrastructure inherited from the ELF project. The purpose of this task was to ensure that the infrastructure is operational and meets the requirements from ELS and Open ELS.

Users

Report on SME engagement

The SME engagement task explored the opportunities for Open ELS within the SME sector by engaging with a select group of businesses across Europe. This work included an online survey and interviews.

Animations on defining Open Data, the benefits for SMES and accessing the test services.