MIWP-7b WCS-based download services

Progress

The action started with avirtual kick-off meeting that was held on June 23rd, 2015 and since then the group has had 4 teleconferences.

All tasks which are included in the ToR have progressed without major delays.

T1 Updates to Technical Guidelines for dowload services to include WCS

  • Work-in-progress (start delayed for two weeks)

T2 New Technical Guidelines for providing INSPIRE coverage data by using WCS

  • Work-in-progress (start delayed for two weeks)

T3 Document the current state-of-play of WCS 2.0 and older versions

  • Work-in-progress (on time)

T4 Demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed guidelines

T4-i Implement the INSPIRE extensions in Open Source WCS 2.0 solution

  • Work-in-progress (on time)

Preliminary implementations made for GeoServer by British Geological Survey and for Rasdaman by the Rasdaman team.

T4-ii Deploy sample coverage data sets from several INSPIRE themes

  • Work-in-progress (on time)

Three demo services are online offering imagery, DEM, and geological data. Meteorological and oceanographic dataset not yet available.

T4-iii Demonstrate interoperability of the deployed data and services

  • In progress (on time)

Start scheduled for December, 2015

T5 Establish a web space and maintain an issue tracker for WCS based download services

  • Completed

Participation

There are 17 experts in the group besides JRC staff and the group leader. Expertise covers very well the WCS standard and aspects of the coverage data of all relevant INSPIRE datasets. However, large part of the MIWP-7b action deals with updating the Technical Guidelines for the INSPIRE download services and only minority of experts have deep knowledge on INSPIRE legislation and documents. So far on average 5 experts out of 17 have attended the teleconferences and number of experts have given valuable input between the meetings. Participation will probably become more active when concrete and targeted questions about Web Coverage Service and coverage data are discussed.

Running the action – Lessons learned

When I started my job as an action leader I had relatively good knowledge on WCS but almost no experience about INSPIRE and the infrastructure around it. More intensive learning about the INSPIRE environment and the tools we use like teleconferencing software and Redmine would have gained both me and the project.

Especially in the first teleconferences a lot of the time hadto be spent to compulsory organizational tasks which has made some technically orientated experts to feel frustrated. It might be good to arrange also targeted chat sessions for a subset of experts with a short agendalike “How to put meteorological data into WCS for INSPIRE?” It could help with getting the best out of each expert and make them feel more comfortable at the same.

Outlook and planning

The action is progressing on all areas. It is mostly on time and the aim is to complete it as planned in the original ToR.