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(Submission #94)
Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) identify INSPIRE spatial objects. However, this requirement is only part of the big picture. INSPIRE also expects that PIDs will be used by external applications as a persistent handle for they. PIDs need to survive the resources they identify for avoiding confusion due to PID recycling. Also, PIDs must be resolvable to up-to-date and trustable data or metadata about the identified resource no matter whether the resource is now in a cold data storage or its original data provider has long ceased its operations. Why is this so difficult? For example, given a INSPIRE namespace, each local identifier must be unique and persistent within a scope agreed by the data provider, ideally in collaboration with a national coordinating body. However, the effective duration of the uniqueness and persistence of local identifiers is dependant of different kinds of technical and budgetary constraints that face data providers. Minting resolvable PIDs for thousands of spatial datasets and billions of spatial objects in Europe and fulfil the user requirements regarding long-term persistence and trust when data providers cannot ensure yet effective persistence of their local identifiers is the real challenge. This challenge may be addressed by a national INSPIRE URI framework governed by a national INSPIRE PIDs policy that provides to data providers a register for namespace and PID, possibly coordinated with local PID registers, and PID resolvers for data users. We identify as a key feature for the success of such framework the automation of the mint, diffusion and resolution of INSPIRE PIDs. The PID register must be able to harvest local identifiers from INSPIRE download services, mint PIDs from them, verify INSPIRE services are still live and return the correct resources, resolve PIDs into resource representations, update PIDs resolution when a resource is moved by technical or governance causes from a download service to other, and archive PIDs when an INSPIRE resource becomes definitely offline. Archiving ensures long persistence because the resolution of PIDs will give access to at least archived metadata. In October 2017, the Geographic High Council (Consejo Superior Geográfico) of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (Ministerio de Fomento) of Spain has adopted the draft of a national INSPIRE PIDs policy based on the framework presented above. This submission will show the progress made so far in its development.
Topic Area: [3.2] Tools and technologies Abstract Type: Oral Presentation
Academic: No Data Provider: Yes Data User: Yes INSPIRE Implementer (IT): No INSPIRE newbies: No Policy Officers: No Public Administration (MS/Regional/Local): Yes Thematic specialists: No
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