Why new tools were developed for the 'GeoPortalNetwork: Liberty United" project

As part of the national innovation co-funding scheme “Space for Geo-information” the project “GeoPortal Network: Liberty United” ran from late 2005 till the end of 2008. Purpose of the project was to promote access to geo-spatial information via web services. To achieve this goal, a network of geo-portals that is governed by a minimum set of rules was developed. Several approaches for finding spatial data were investigated. Earlier experiences show that a top down approach as tried in the Dutch National Clearinghouse Geo-Information does not work. Instead, it was decided to use a thematic approach for opening up metadata. Several thematic portals were created. In line with the INSPIRE principle the data are located and maintained at its source and the application of open standards allows everyone to contribute to the network. However, this is still a supply driven approach whereas a more demand driven approach seems more appropriate. Therefore, attention in the project shifted from the creation of thematic portals to the underlying web services and the creation of web applications developed with a specific purpose in mind. Initially, it was our intention to implement the network using existing software. However, as it turned out, not all the tools needed to implement the network outlined in this paper were available. Existing tools work really well for specific applications or in predefined environments, but a lot of the tools available do not strictly adhere to the open standards or do not use all possibilities offered by the standards. This prevents an adequate adaptation of interoperability standards. Innovations in the application domain are still a prerequisite to force these developments to take place. This led to development of a true OGC/ISO compliant CSW dubbed eXcat and a platform independent, extensible framework for the development of standards compliant internet GIS applications dubbed Luigi. Together with of the shelf tools, the newly developed tools provide the technical foundation of our network. It can therefore be concluded that software is not a barrier for the adoption of the principles laid down in the INPSIRE directive. It is now up to the owners of geo-spatial data to take the next step and make their data available using standards compliant web services