Updates from LGD14

Dear all,

For those who weren't at LGD14 [1], an outline of what happened there.

The discussions carried out at the workshop covered a wide range of topics,
which it is difficult to summarise. We'll try to highlight those we think
are relevant to the LOCADD CG. We kindly ask the LOCADD members present at
the workshop to contribute their views. BTW, the draft workshop minutes
from the IRC chat are available at [2,3].

So, coming to the relevant points:

1. Despite the existence of consolidated technologies in the geospatial
field, there's still a lack of harmonisation, which makes it difficult to
effectively use the data, e.g., in applications integrating different data
sources.

2. A number of gaps in existing vocabularies have been highlighted,
including those discussed in the LOCADD CG - which were outlined by Frans,
John and Raphaël in their presentations.

3. The complexity of geospatial specifications is a barrier to their re-use
in the Web and in other domains. The availability of simplified
alternatives is desirable.

4. Sometimes the geo and Web communities are talking about the same things
using different words. We need to build bridges between communities, not
only between technologies.

Before the end of the workshop, Phil Archer (W3C) and Bart De Lathouwer
(OGC) illustrated their view on how W3C and OGC can support work on the
open issues, including (a) the possible creation of a working group jointly
chartered by W3C and OGC, and (b) promoting the standardisation of GeoJSON
and work on GeoJSON-LD (an issue that came up quite a few times during the
workshop - see [4,5] for recent work on this).

The workshop was closed by a number of breakout groups focussing on
different topics proposed by participants. The one proposed by Jeremy Tandy
was about available vocabularies and ontologies able to address the
requirements of geospatial data, and the identification of existing gaps.
The discussion covered topics that are in scope with the LOCADD CG,
although others may be not - e.g., the representation of time. There's the
possibility that such discussion will be continued, at least partially, in
the LOCADD CG

Best,

Michael and Andrea

----
[1]http://www.w3.org/2014/03/lgd/
[2]http://www.w3.org/2014/03/05-lgd-minutes.html
[3]http://www.w3.org/2014/03/06-lgd-minutes.html
[4]http://geojson.org/vocab
[5]https://github.com/geojson/geojson-ld

-- 
Andrea Perego, Ph.D.
European Commission DG JRC
Institute for Environment & Sustainability
Unit H06 - Digital Earth & Reference Data
Via E. Fermi, 2749 - TP 262
21027 Ispra VA, Italy

DE+RD Unit: http://ies.jrc.ec.europa.eu/DE

----
The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may
not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official
position of the European Commission.