SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 MECOSIG Adapted to the Design of Distributed GIS F. Pasquasy, F. Laplanche, J-C. Sainte & J-P. Donnay Unit of Geomatics, University of Liège, Belgium

2 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 MECOSIG  A method devoted to GIS design and implementation [published in 1996] considering: GIS as an Information System (IS) where IS  Organization (systemic approach) Organization as the core of the method  The method has been progressively improved (last decade)  Emergence of distributed GIS involved : reassessment of the methodology  new concerns and tools (fitting the requirements of distributed environments) identified

3 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 MECOSIG - Design protocol  Method covering the complete GIS’s lifecycle using specific tools at different abstraction levels  Descriptive to Logical-Physical level...  Design protocol is summarized into a monitoring matrix every cell relates to  specific tools (formalisms, models, prototyping …)  semantic concerns (metadata, documentation …)  Main concerns are Organization, Data, Data flows, Processes  MECOSIG suggested to go twice through the monitoring matrix analysis stage (not anymore taken into account because of redundancy with the descriptive level in conception step) conception step

4 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 MECOSIG - Monitoring Matrix

5 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Descriptive level  Group of actors of the organization(s) must be identified  Actors have their own: set of privileges specific use cases  More often a specialization relationship exists between them

6 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Descriptive level  Concerning processes (in particular crossed processes in distributed GIS), interactions between groups of actors and the System are identified in terms of: textual descriptions UML use cases  Data are identified according to use cases  Data are described in a catalogue and quality must be analysed Use of standards (ISO & 19115) is recommended  Further agreements must be achieved in order to incorporate semantic rules in spatial data domain (interoperability requirements …)

7 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 MECOSIG - Monitoring Matrix

8 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Conceptual level  UML class diagram used to design Data (original formalism proposed in MECOSIG - CONGOO is substituted) is internationally admitted as standard (System modelling) offers more than only one diagram  design can combine serial of models to depict a context  Specificity of spatial data in UML object’s geometry  a lot of studies [e.g. COMOSIG Workshops ER2004, Bédard & al., 2004] dealt with  stereotypes or tagged values allow to adapt UML topological relationships  concept of topological matrix (originally from CONGOO) is added and adapted  two kinds of topological matrix are available the traditional matrix and the strong one

9 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Conceptual level

10 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Conceptual level  Every use case is extracted from the descriptive level and detailed using UML activity diagrams  Sequence diagrams are used to conceptualize specific scenarios of activity diagrams

11 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 MECOSIG - Monitoring Matrix

12 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Organizational level  Facing the implementation of a distributed infrastructure, important organisational constraints must be met missions of all actors should be assessed and possibly redefined new tasks are introduced in order to guarantee  maintenance, permanent working and growth of the distributed System new data flows are generated and others have to be adapted data exchange must be performed easily and in a transparent way for all users  access to metadata [ISO standards] - particularly metadata related to quality (data usability and appraisal of final results)  some data / services access can be restricted or subject to authorization(s)

13 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Organizational level  From these purposes coming up representative’s committees in charge of coordination tasks formalization can also be introduced to depict their tasks (UML use cases, activity & sequence diagrams, …)

14 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 MECOSIG - Monitoring Matrix

15 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Logical-Physical level  Roles and tasks of all actors should be clearly specified key is to associate all actors in the new System which will be set up  e.g.: sensitizing and training sessions to facilitate the understanding of the re-engineered system possible reallocation of human resources  Constitution of the representative’s committees in charge of coordination tasks competent and representative of the various departments or organizations receiving the ability to act decisively  Managerial economies and economies of scale could be achieved Acquisition of common reference data Globalisation of software licenses

16 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Logical-Physical level  A technical study must be completed to guarantee the required degree of interoperability to identify precisely  add-on hardware and software  distributed system components  systems for cross-relating items of information across multiple sources  Modelling process is to design objects which must be deployed in a distributed System e.g. data storage structure (components and deployment UML diagrams) previous activity and sequence diagrams (conceptual level) are improved  by adding objects dealing with data flows, procedures and processes according to GIS software, tools and DBMS specificities...

17 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Logical-Physical level

18 SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Adaptations - Logical-Physical level  Whole of the logical-physical level is integrated into a evolutionary project pilot

SEBGIS 2005, Agia Napa, Cyprus, October 31 - November 4, 2005 Thank you… Q / A ?