Version 1.0.0 of the common INSPIRE validator released

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has released version 1.0 of the common INSPIRE validator. 

After a period of testing at JRC and with interested validation experts, we are happy to announce that version 1.0.0 of the common INSPIRE validator has been released, covering tests for the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines on metadata (v1.3), download services (Atom and WFS) and Annex I data themes.

The new validator will be presented in a hands-on workshop on Tuesday, 5 September from 11:00-12:30 during the 2017 INSPIRE Conference. If you are planning to attend the workshop, please register your interest and indicate any data, metadata or services you would like to test.

You can also provide your feedback on the new validator using the INSPIRE validation GitHub repository.

Background

Validating data, metadata or services against INSPIRE requirements is a crucial step for implementers to understand how far they have progressed towards the INSPIRE goals and where further work is still needed. Validation can also provide an easy and automatic tool to understand and interpret the requirements in the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines.

The development of commonly agreed rules and corresponding tools for conformity testing has therefore been one of the key activities of the INSPIRE maintenance and implementation group (MIG) from the very beginning. Apart from supporting

INSPIRE implementers in the Member States, this activity aims at avoiding inconsistencies between validation results in different Member States and at the European level and the duplication of development, maintenance and operation efforts for validation tools across Europe.

Under action MIWP-5, the work between 2014 and 2016 mainly focused on the development of commonly agreed Abstract Test Suites (ATS) for the most relevant INSPIRE Technical Guidelines, including for metadata, network services and data interoperability.

Based on these ATS, a reference validator has been developed under the ARE3NA ISA action. This work includes the development of - a re-usable test framework, which allows, among other things, to connect to external test engines (such as the OGC CITE engine), and - Executable Test Suites, which implement the tests defined in the ATSs.