w w w. n e s s t a r. c o m madiera georeferences and comparable data - a developer’s view

w w w . n e s s t a r . c o m

Madiera

Georeferences

And

Comparable data

- a developer’s view


A Geo-referencing system

• Current problems– Different ways to tag up a study with geographic

references• Study- VS data-level (metadata VS data)• Higher levels VS lower (semantic differences)

– Difficult to utilise through a search-interface

…In short…

• Difficult to get usable geographic references in• Difficult to use geographic references for something

useful


What do we need?

• We need a geographic identification of data resources– Associate studies with geographic coordinates

• A way to communicate from an interface, to initiate a search process– Search for studies using geographic coordinates


Getting geographic coordinates into studies

• Potentially large amounts of coordinate data• Tagging process should be mostly automatic• DDI has room for our coordinates!

<geogCover>Norway</geogCover> <geoBndBox>

<westBL>4.789583</westBL> <eastBL>33.637497</eastBL> <southBL>57.987915</southBL> <northBL>80.76416</northBL>

</geoBndBox>


Geographic tagging using Nesstar Publisher

• Publisher talks to a standard map-server (WFS)

Web Feature Server

Publisher Nesstar Server



• Publisher-user specifies map and subregions



• DDI with geographic coordinates is published to a Nesstar-server

<codebook>…

<westBL>4.789583</westBL> <eastBL>33.637497</eastBL> <southBL>57.987915</southBL><northBL>80.76416</northBL>

…</codebook>

Nesstar Server

Now, the coordinates “live” on the server

and can be utilised in a search procedure


Geographic searching in the Madiera Portal

• The best way to select area of interest?– Search for name of country or region?

– Using a map-interface?

It depends…

…but today we discuss a map-based search interface


Map-search requirements

The user must be able to:• Select maps from a list of relevant maps• Zoom into an area of interest• Submit the coordinates of the area of interest as a

parameter of a search query• Allow for combination of area of interest and

additional parameters (i.e. “normal”)

• Etc?


Map-search-component

• …can be plugged into the Portal or any Nesstar Server

• …talks to a standard map-server (WMS)

Nesstar Server/Madiera Portal

Map interface

Web Map Server



• …lets the user choose maps from a list of available maps

• …renders images from map coordinates



• …supports zoom and pan

http://192.168.1.22:8080/geoserver/geotest.jsp



• …can be integrated with regular Nesstar/Portal search

• …to provide the best results and most efficient interface

• Searching for the term “education” for datasets from UK and Ireland


Comparable data

Some important points regarding deliverable D4.2 –

A Methodology for identification of Comparable Data

- an interactive apporach


4 actions for better support for searching for

comparable data1. Thesaurus-support in Nesstar Publisher

– Enriched/standardised documentation

2. Thesaurus-support in Nesstar Server/Madiera Portal– Support for multilingual search

3. Cleaned-up search in Nesstar WebView– Allowing search within variable groups etc.

– Removal of “questionable” fields

4. Integrated search from analysis-mode in WebView– Searching for similar variables in a different study

context (time, region, etc)


Thesaurus-support in Nesstar Publisher

• TEASED (Thsaurus(ELSST)-Aided Standardisation and Enrichment of Metadata)– Nesstar Publisher imports ELSST-thesaurus

– Publisher scans edited documentation

– …and suggests terms from the thesaurus

– …leaving up to the publishing personnel to decide which terms/related terms/synonyms to use

• The goal– Richer and more standardised documentation


Thesaurus in Publisher – an example


Thesaurus-support in Nesstar Server

• TEASME(Thesarus(ELSST)-Aided Search in a Multilingual Environment)– Provided with a search-term and the language of the

search-string the server can:

…translate the term into any supported language

…expand the term into broader search terms and/or synonyms

…do both the above in the same operation


Cleaned-up search in Nesstar WebView

• Allow for searching within Variable Groups (an obvious flaw in Nesstar 3.0)– Variable groups provide valuable information

• Remove searching for meaningless elements– E.g. Variable Names (typically V1, V2, V4, ..) and

abbreviations

– Reducing complexity in the interface

• This is the easy part


Searching when analysing• Starting point: Cross-table with two variables (E.g. Political

Interest by Age)• Integrated search invoked by clicking icon (somehow)


Searching when analysing - helping users on their way

• Scan the variables in the analysis for appropriate terms

• Open the Advanced search-interface– Automatically fill out the variable-specific search-terms

discovered by the scan

– Allow for user-defined changes and refinements

– Allow the user to specify extra criteria, e.g.• Study – Time period

• Study – Nation

• Variable - Universe


Example or a pre-filled-in query

w w w. n e s s t a r. c o m madiera georeferences and comparable data - a developer’s view

Documents