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Managing partner's feedbacks through the geo-web
1. Managing partner’s feedbacks through the web Jean-Marc Viglino, IGN-France 1st EuroSDR Workshop Crowd Sourcing for Updating National Databases
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3. The partnership policy Aim: to save public money by integrating data already produced and maintained by institutional partners. Post Office, Cadastral Agency, Forestry Agency, Electric network company, Railroad network company, Provincial Councils , Fire departments Partner GIS application Today’s workflow Periodic bulk exchanges between GIS managers and IGN !
4. The modified partnership policy Partner updates Validation Integration GIS application Validation Integration What we want to do! Aim: smooth and more continuous integration of partners’ information and data, based on feedback management.
5. Feedback Management System CMS + Geoportal API !? Storage Data base management Users controller Query / statistics Workflow validation Syndication Application service model Consultation Back Office Front Office Expert Feedback Application service DBMS Customization module Security access customers
6. Feedback Management System Plugin Geoportail (virtual map API) file upload feedback service … CMS functions : front/back office – publishing – forum – author – statistics – configuration… CMS
First I would present you the French large scale reference system, composed of four components : an orthophoto, a topographic database, the parcel maps and an address component. We are changing from a classical updates to on the fly updating for the vector components. On the fly updating concerns mains roads, railways and major facilities. Annual updates concerning the electric networks, administrative data, addresses and other facilities. Then classic update using stereorestitution processes makes sure nothing has been forgetting and collects the rest of the information. The main difficulties are to be informed of all changes and the capture of geometry.
In order to save public money, we use information's feedbacks from different institutional sources that already collect or produce themselves this information. Today, the workflow consists of periodic bulk exchanges between GIS managers and IGN. This exchanges are mainly manual an the information collected have to be rearranged to be used. As a collector makes a feedback to the partner, either using classical techniques (paper, fax,…) or new technologies, the GIS manager integrates the feedbacks to its database before extracting and sending the new information to us. This is time consuming and inefficient…
So we plan to federate the update collection in a single application using a Geoportal interface. The updates coming from the sources would be reachabled for all users directly.
Actually, we want a feedback management system, which would be a sort of content management system (CMS) for geographical data. CMS are well known in editing processes to produce online newspapers. News are send to the system, validated by a college of experts then integrated to the database and available for the community. We need application services to connect to the geographical component, security access controllers and some useful functions such as syndication are possible.
The application is based on SPIP, a french OpenSource Content Management System used to publish news on the web (http://www.spip.net). It consist of publishing functions which are useful for FAQ or How To section, it include a search engine, forum management, author administration (creation, profile, avatar…), a statistical module to know who is coming and from where (referrer) and an administration component (back office, backup, multilingual module, syndication…) which includes a plugin API to develop new add-ons. So we develop an add-on using the Geoportail virtual map API (based on OpenLayers) to locate users feedbacks.
As it would be a great benefit for us to develop such a service (to get continuous, normalized feedbacks), we have to keep in mind that, at this step, important questions still remain… Why would people contribute ? Because they are nice partners… It’s easy to deploy (you just need a web connection) but the age of the contributors is a drawback It is a civic contribution (they use the national databases) Professional interest (partnership : they make contribution as part of their job) What will we expect in term of accuracy, reliability or completeness ? Partners already return information and we already know which informations are returned. They are experts professional or even authorities in their job But this is our own feeling and further, we ask the partners of what they were expecting for such a service. They said to be interested in because they have the same problem to catch feedbacks from their ground users but they want to : use the service for they own data secure the data to their group take advantage of other partner’s feedbacks of the other groups to be able to plug they own process on the service (input/output format) add they own layer (WMS, WFS…) At this time, we see emerging an interesting concept : the notion of group and community and we can formulate new statements : Why would people contribute ? To be part of a social network (group concept) Professional investment : when offering a response to a shared problem Social reward : by being part of the community and promote themselves or their own group as active actor. What will we expect in term of accuracy, reliability or completeness ? By involving the partner in the validation workflow when he sorts or consults the feedbacks for they own needs, we improve the reliability of the returns. He will be interested in developing and improving the service. That lead to the next question : How to manage the workflow ? People wants response their feedbacks. They want the service to be easy to use (playful ?) Integrate the workflow to the existing update process
We have developed and experiment a model with some partners. It includes a small feedback management, groups definitions, connections to web services (to show maps). We still have to refine the workflow and the evaluation of the feedbacks. Some useful tools such as drawing or query tools will also be produced.