Jon Blower Project coordinator University of Reading The MELODIES project Jon Blower Project coordinator University of Reading

MELODIES Overview Maximizing the Exploitation of Linked Open Data In Enterprise and Science 3 years, November 2013 – October 2016 16 partners in 8 EU countries €6.7M budget

Project consortium

Project concept Coperni-cus

Project objectives To combine multiple open data streams to develop innovative services in a broad range of societal benefit areas; To apply Linked Data approaches to enable multiple sources of data to be integrated, thereby generating new knowledge; To ensure that the services are sustainable beyond the lifetime of the project by considering numerous factors; To deliver reusable technology that facilitates the exploitation of open data by both the MELODIES services and by future services outside of the project; To demonstrate the value of open data and stimulate the release of more open data by data providers.

The MELODIES Services

Improving Emission Inventories Site-specific information for land management Urban Ecosystem Accounting Assessment of Good Environmental Status for oceans Desertification indicators Marine transport Customised crisis, disaster and risk mapping Groundwater modelling Both public and private sector. Some starting from scratch, some built upon existing efforts.

Each service has an identified user community and one or more advisors from this community Project Advisory Board is made up of these advisors and others who are interested in project

Project Advisory Board Name Affiliation Andrea Perego JRC Dominik Brunner Bosch Adam Leadbetter Marine Institute, Galway Andrew Wharrad Defra, UK Luke Spadevecchia Geoff Sawyer EARSC Wolfgang Steinborn European Space Imaging Rosella Bertolotto ARPAL Ligurian Environment Agency Lúcio Pires do Rosário INCF, Portugal Ray Mahdon UK Met Office Jordi Molist Catalan Water Agency Giovanna Trianni RMS

The MELODIES technology platform

Shared cloud computing platform Using Terradue cloud platform Developed in previous projects, e.g. GeoWOW Gives “sandbox” environment for new services Easy scale-out when “going live” or when data requirements grow Frees providers from the need to run their own Big Data platform

“If … the Web made all the online documents look like one huge book, [Linked Data] will make all the data in the world look like one huge database.” Sir Tim Berners-Lee Photo by Susan Lesch, from Wikipedia

5 stars of Open Data http://5stardata.info Linked Data GEOSS Data Sharing Principles apply first three. 4 and 5 are the next steps to Linked Data.

Linked Open Data Cloud (lod-cloud.net) Geo data in here (orange circles) includes UK Met Office, Open Street Map, UK Ordnance Survey,

Geospatial Linked Data Strabon spatiotemporal RDF store GeoSPARQL / stSPARQL support GeoTriples Convert geospatial data to RDF Ontop-spatial “Wrap” existing geo-databases SILK Discover links in datasets

App development and visualization Sextant visualization of time-evolving geospatial Linked Data ncWMS and EDAL Visualization of large raster data through WMS CoverageJSON New format for building rich web applications

Cross-cutting activities

Dissemination Summary

Website visitor locations

Blog entries

Standardisation Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Technical Committee meetings OGC/W3C Spatial Data on the Web Working Group Interactions with INSPIRE and GEOSS communities

Sustainability of the services 8 very different services with different levels of maturity before MELODIES, different types of organisation and different planned outcomes What do we mean by sustainability? A ‘living outcome’ after the project lifetime e.g. a commercial service e.g. a new capability to be adopted by a government agency or scientific community Not necessarily operational immediately after MELODIES How to maximise the probability for all services to have a living outcome beyond the project? Engaging with users throughout project lifetime Identifying and addressing barriers early Addressing costs, business models and competition early Supporting the services with a common technology platform and guidance Pushing for change where change is needed

Sustainability summary 6 services/subservices expected to become “operational” at some level at end of project 7 services/subservices plan further technical/business development All services have a continuation plan Terradue cloud platform has ongoing business model Users can be supported through research grants Or can support any users through direct subscriptions

Quantifiable Benefits (examples) Service Provider Benefits: “Open data saves almost $350,000 on just one of the input datasets” (WP3) “Cloud processing can save tens to hundreds of €K on in-house resources” (WP4) “Open data reduces EO data costs by about €60,000” (WP5) “Cloud platform allows 10-20x reduction in production time” (WP7) User Benefits: “Yield loss can be reduced by 5% by optimal positioning of greening areas” (WP5) “A 10% increase in utilisation of datasets anticipated over the next year as a result of the Melodies work and LOD” (WP6) “A terminal owner could avoid losing €18-30K on a single incident if they know a ship will be 6hrs late and unload another ship in its place” (WP9) “Energy consumption for water pumping and treatment can be reduced by 5% by optimising the choice of the water sources and quantities” (WP10)

Some common challenges (see D11.4 “Open Data Recommendations”) Understanding open licences can be hard for users and publishers Organisations don’t want to hire legal support! Understanding meanings of “free” and “open” distribution charges need for user tracking Publishing open data is a continuous activity not just putting data “out there”, requires updating, maintenance, quality of service Importance of good quality metadata including points of contact Ease of use of data systems E.g. Sentinel data access is still challenging for some Linked Data is promising but can incur costs Who bears these and how can they be justified?

Project summary We aim to show that Open Data has real benefit for environmental applications …by developing eight new real services Underpinned by shared platform providing common functionality Linked Data is a common research theme throughout the project

Thank you. j. d. blower@reading. ac Thank you! j.d.blower@reading.ac.uk @Jon_Blower http://melodiesproject.eu @MelodiesProject

Some common challenges Linked Data challenges: Dealing with raster data in Linked Data framework Cost of conversion to Linked Data - who bears this? Data access: Sentinel data is very important but access to Sentinel data still not as convenient as many would like Some key datasets not open E.g. TODO Would still be valuable if anonymised Open Data licence challenges Inconsistencies of licence and/or interpretation Publishing data to ensure widest re-use Interaction with mass-market search engines?

D11.4: Open Data Recommendations We don’t want to hire a VP Legal Affairs for understanding Open Data Licenses Standardised and simple data licenses should be developed on European level. License wording is often complex using specific legal terms, and exemptions and specific conditions often apply. Identifying the right license is as challenging for a data provider as is its understanding for the user. Standardised licenses guarantee efficiency and prevent the risk of being allowed using a specific data type from one provider while being prohibited using the same data from another provider due to license terms. Metadata should be self-evident including points of contact. Publishing data is one thing, hence, data owners should be available and providing support alongside data if needed. Getting in touch with the data producers may be needed when metadata and documentation are not detailed enough or when data is only partially published. The conclusions of the report which feed into the recommendations

D11.4: Open Data Recommendations Once launched, an Open Data portal is a lively/agile/living organism It shouldn’t be static and filled only one-time with data. Instead, it should be continuously extended with new data, data updates and tools. These updates should be documented. Open Data should be Full, Free and Open PSI and INSPIRE allow charging service fees e.g. for handling and disseminating data. Our opinion is: Open data should be full, free and open. Open data is generally published through the Web and data handling fees not justifiable. However, commercial services creating added value to existing open data should have the opportunity to charge license costs. Publishing Open Data creates responsibility Reliable backend is critical for services integrating open government data on the fly (e.g. as linked open data). IT-services have to be in place ensuring a 24/7/365 provision of open data. It must guarantee stability in times of high user requests and must apply required security standards. IT failures could lead to service interruptions having financial losses for service providers as a consequence. The conclusions of the report which feed into the recommendations