UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA Tom Ensom & Veerle Van den Eynden wwww.data-archive.ac.uk
Jun 30, 2015
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
Tom Ensom & Veerle Van den Eynden
wwww.data-archive.ac.uk
Archived survey data presents a vast wealth of material with potential for
secondary use in GIS
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
UK DATA ARCHIVE
• Over 5,000 datasets
• Popular survey data series include:
Quarterly Labour Force Survey
British Household Panel Survey / Understanding Society
British Crime Survey
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
We set out to explore the availability and usability of geo-identifiers in the UK Data
Archive collection
These identifiers come in the form of ‘spatial units’ e.g. Ward and Constituency
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
• The availability of geo-referenced data is ever increasing
• The usability of geo-referenced data ‘out-of-the-box’ is still generally poor
Reflective of and contributing too a divide between:
• GIS experts – idiosyncratic methodologies• Untrained with interest – steep learning
curve
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
1. SELECTION
2. QUALITY
3. METADATA
Three key features of ‘ready-to-link’ survey data for GIS
1. SELECTION
Include geographical identifiers which:
• Can be readily transformed
• Are of sufficient resolution to allow for fine-grained analysis
• Are appropriate to the data subject
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
2. QUALITY
Include geographical identifiers which:
• Use standard names
• Are coded with a standard coding schemee.g. ONS’ GSS Coding and Naming
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
3. METADATA
Include geographical identifiers which are:
• Time-referencede.g. Government Office Region as defined in 2001 as opposed to 1998
• Well documented in their derivation
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
Those collecting data need to adjust their workflows to enable this
Those curating data need to adjust their workflows to enable this
What should data collectors be doing?
• Considering geographic identifiers BEFORE data collection!
• Considering standards• INSPIRE/GEMINI• GSS Coding and Naming
• Documenting the provenance of geographic identifiers
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
What will we be doing at the UK Data Archive?
• INSPIRE compliance(we have published a metadata mapping for DDI-INSPIRE-GEMINI)
• Improving spatial unit definitions through extensive data cleansing
Standardised Time referenced
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
What will we be doing at the UK Data Archive?
• Improving resource discovery tools / interface
User friendly Lessen time spent searching through text Consider semantics
• Feeding back to data depositors
Guidance on best practise
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
U·Geo Browser
A new web tool for resource discovery
• Revised and augmented variable metadata
• Information clarifying the quality of the geo-identifier
• Integrated spatial unit definitions
• Links to boundary files
Live beta at: geo.data-archive.ac.uk
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
U·Geo Browser
• A demo tool using a simple, pragmatic approach
• This tech will be integrated into a central Archive resource discovery tool, and catalogued data will be updated to reflect these refinements
-
• A step in the right direction but we need formal semantics built on persistent vocabularies
• A drive needed to establish this
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
UNLOCKING THE GEOSPATIAL POTENTIAL OF SURVEY DATA
Tom Ensom
wwww.data-archive.ac.uk
@UKDataArchive
Thanks to:
• all those at the UK Data Archive
• to EDINA for their contributions as consultants