Welcome to Module 5, Publishing Geospatial Data.

You can publish your geospatial data and make your database searchable by connecting it to the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI). This allows CGDI users to directly search your geospatial database, which increases your exposure across Canada and internationally.

When you publish your geospatial data within the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure, you will be joining an ever-growing number of organizations and individuals who have made their data collections available to others through the CGDI. In fact, in 2003, there were over 1,200 Canadian and 11,500 international datasets documented with metadata within the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure. Thanks to the CGDI’s distributed architecture, you can search over 140 Canadian databases (and over 240 databases in all) containing millions of products.

In this module, you will learn about:

• The metadata required to publish your geospatial database;
• The CGDI’s specification for metadata;
• The process of searching distributed databases;
• The CGDI-endorsed Z39.50 search protocol;
• The Geodata Discovery Service, a CGDI specification to search and retrieve geospatial metadata;
• The steps involved in connecting your database;
• How to test your connection; and
• Several security considerations for connecting your database.

This module comprises 16 pages, and should take you about 25 minutes to complete.