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CGDI online training
This online course is designed to introduce you to the various components of the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure, their functionality, and the standards and specifications necessary to implement them.more
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Standards and Partnerships Connect the Dots of Interoperability
The Canadian Interoperability Day was co-hosted in April 2007 by ESRI Canada and GeoConnections in Ottawa, Ontario. As many of the day's talks and sessions revealed, interoperability depends on both standards and partnerships to succeed.
The Base of All Infrastructures: Standards
The Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) and interoperability rely heavily on standards. Standards underlie every infrastructure, including electrical grids, telecommunications networks, and railway systems. They also define how data is collected, maintained, accessed, and shared. And they allow governments and businesses to take advantage of the location-based information sitting in databases throughout Canada and around the world.
Managing and making sense of this information are important to decision making in areas such as public safety and the environment.
For example, researchers might tap into the CGDI to find out why millions of bees in Ontario's Niagara Region died over the past winter. As much as 90 percent of some commercial colonies have disappeared. These deaths threaten honey supplies and fruit crops, which need bees for pollination. By combining and mapping data on bee-colony locations, weather patterns, and pesticide use, researchers could try to discover what's killing the bees. This example is but one of thousands that could rely on the CGDI to find solutions.
“A geospatial data infrastructure lets us discover relationships,” said Alex Miller, President of ESRI Canada. “It allows us to conceptualize things and build, test, and visualize models. It's a way to develop and share our knowledge.”
Partnerships Make Interoperability Possible
Standards don't just create themselves, however. They evolve because people and organizations work together to reduce barriers to sharing and accessing data.
In the world of location-based information, partnerships address many issues including confidentiality, accuracy, cost sharing, and licensing. Licensing deals with the conditions for using data.
For instance, what happens when data provider A combines its endangered-species information with data provider B's satellite images and sends the resulting map to a third party? Does this third party owe anything to provider B?
Among its many roles, GeoConnections assists parties to establish data-licensing agreements and to create and follow best practices. GeoConnections is a Natural Resources Canada-led national partnership program that works to evolve and expand the CGDI. By helping to build partnerships that address issues such as data licensing and standards, GeoConnections encourages geospatial growth in Canada.
“The people and organizational side of interoperability are just as important as the technical side,” said Jeff Labonte, Director General, Earth Sciences Sector, Natural Resources Canada. “We pay attention to both sides, with the aim of helping decision-makers in a number of important areas to capitalize on the CGDI.”
Standards and the partnerships that bring them about will continue to play crucial roles in geospatial applications and services. These applications and services will influence the quality of life for Canadians and for others around the world.