Geonovum wants geospatial data to be used. The public sector creates a lot of geospatial data, a lot of which is open data and could be useful to others, who are often not experts on spatial data. In addition, we have observed how geospatial data is becoming more and more important for the web and its importance is still growing. Semantically meaningful information on objects is required. Which is not just buildings, roads or waterways; but also e.g. legislative boundaries, permits and ordinances. In our opinion it’s very important to integrate spatial data with other data on the Web. This is one of the reasons why Geonovum originally started the Platform Linked Data Nederland as a pilot a few years ago, why we organized the Spatial data on the Web testbed in 2015/2016, and it is also part of the mission of the Spatial Data on the Web working group (SDWWG) that OGC and W3C have formed together, in which Geonovum is participating. Geonovum is also actively promoting the use of APIs within the public sector organizing and participating in the API knowledge platform (apigov.nl).
Geonovum's efforts - with regards to promoting the use of APIs – is well aligned with more recent OGC developments towards a set of API standards. These new OGC APIs are based on the well-known OGC Web Service (OWS) standards, but are more in tune with modern web principles.
The Spatial Data on the Web working group is dedicated (among other things) to do the following:
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to determine how spatial data can best be integrated with other data on the Web
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to determine how machines and people can discover that different facts in different datasets relate to the same place, especially when 'place' is expressed in different ways and at different levels of granularity
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to identify and assess existing methods and tools and then create a set of best practices for their use
All this shows that there are multiple layers of access required for geospatial data; or in other words, multiple groups of potential users. One of these groups is the group of geospatial experts, and another is the group of the data users (e.g. web developer, data journalist, data scientist) with no or little specific geospatial expertise. The first group can work with all OGC standards; the second are probably better served with simpler interfaces in a more webby fashion.
One of the users of geospatial data is the public sector itself. In the Netherlands, this is recognized in the existence of several key registries; central databases of, to name a few, all registered addresses, citizens, and cars, but also topographic objects such as roads, waterways, buildings, and smaller objects such as lamp posts and traffic signs. These key registries allow governmental organizations to reuse data created in its different sections. Most key registries already offer some form of API. For instance the registry for buildings and addresses has shown an enormous increase in use since they introduced their API. The new Environmental Act (‘Omgevingswet’) which will come into effect soon has also provided a great boost to the use of APIs for spatial data in the public sector. The fact that APIs help spread the (re)use of spatial data beyond traditional expert users is clear here. What we want to know is what the key success factors and best practices are to help more organizations achieve these goals.
In the years since Geonovum’s previous Spatial data on the Web testbed, major innovations have been taking place in geospatial data dissemination and -standards. Notably, the OGC Web Service standards have been evolving into a set of standardized OGC Web APIs. These could play a key role in making spatial data part of the ecosystem of the Web. We are keen to implement and adopt these new standards in the Netherlands, but before we do so, we need to answer several questions about them.
The fact that APIs help spread the (re)use of spatial data beyond traditional expert users is clear. What we want to know is what the key success factors and best practices are to help more organizations achieve these goals. What use cases are best addressed with API standards from OGC and when is it better to use convenience APIs? What are the hurdles to implementation, can we negate existing hurdles through better discoverability, what makes an API truly easy to implement and use in client applications, what are the benefits of simpler encoding formats?