Descriptions of reusable location information solutions : European Union location framework

As part of the ISA programme, the Digital Economy Unit of the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) is co-ordinating ISA Action 2.13 - Establishment of a European Union Location Framework (EULF). The goal of this analysis, carried out as part of the EULF action, was to identify a list of reusable location information solutions (including standards and specifications) which could be shared on Joinup; a list which public administrations and other geospatial data providers can leverage when developing location-enabled solutions and services. The following activities were carried out: 1. A list of standards and specifications recommended by the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) was derived from the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines, as possible input to Joinup; 2. An architecture model (for a typical Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)) based on the European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA) and on INSPIRE was developed to facilitate the identification of reusable location information solutions for data publishing; 3. Selected SDIs were analysed and their solution building blocks (SBBs) were mapped to the architecture building blocks (ABBs) of the defined architecture model; 4. An assessment of the identified SBBs was carried out to determine whether these SBBs were eligible to be included in the European Interoperability Cartography (EIC). However, given that the EIC eligibility criteria were not yet mature at the time of carrying out the analysis, this partial assessment was only done against the Joinup eligibility criteria, since the Joinup platform is envisaged to be where the EIC will reside. The analysis resulted in the identification of 109 SBBs (policy, software, service, specification or standard, and guideline or template), out of which 49 meet the Joinup eligibility criteria, and therefore could potentially be included in the EIC, provided that these 49 SBBs would be compliant with the EIC eligibility criteria. The work performed in the current analysis for the EULF has started to address the challenges and opportunities in identifying and classifying location information solutions that may contribute to the catalogue of reusable solutions being coordinated under the ISA and ISA2 programmes. It complements the cataloguing activity of the associated ISA Action 1.17 - A Reusable INSPIRE Reference Platform (ARE3NA), which identifies relevant resources related to the steps in implementing INSPIRE.