[open-government] Fwd: [Geodata] geodata.gov.gr (beta) is up and running on foss

Mon Aug 16 08:07:09 UTC 2010

Good morning everyone,

I am Spiros Athanasiou (spathan) and coordinate the design and development of 
geodata.gov.gr. Along with Prodromos Tsiavos (cc'ed) we have also prepared the 
corresponding legislative framework (Law on "National Infrastructure for 
Geospatial Information").

Just wanted to contribute a (somewhat) better translation of the text included 
in the article. And of course apologize for not providing an English version of 
geodata.gov.gr! This is in our todo list for the next few months.

Also, I would like to mention that:
1. geodata.gov.gr will be officially announced in the Thessaloniki International 
Trade Fair this September 
(http://www.helexpo.gr/default.aspx?lang=en-US&loc=1&page=1642).
2. We will be organizing a hackathon for public data (details will be announced 
shortly).
3. Data from geodata.gov.gr are already used (i.e. re-used/purposed) from a 
number of Greek public bodies (unfortunately not allowed to disclose them at 
this point), saving the Greek Government so far roughly 6M euros in procurement 
costs alone (productivity costs are greater). As the service grows in 
size/quality and the number of participating public bodies increases, we expect 
this number to be significantly greater.

Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me and Prodromos.

Best Regards,

Spiros

PS: Translation follows:
Q: Plenty of geospatial data that interest me and are of great value are missing!
We know this fact and continuously try to incorporate as much as possible data 
sets from the public administration. However, this task is more difficult than 
it sounds. Until recently:
There were no records of the geospatial data owned from the public 
administration. The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climatic Change has 
already covered this gap, so we are now in position to know who has what!
There was no clear legislative framework on how the public administration offers 
its data. To be specific, certain public bodies marketed their data with 
arbitrary licenses and costs, even to other public bodies! In other cases, 
geospatial data were not available to third parties, other than the body that 
originally procured the data. All these issues are amended by the law on 
“National Infrastructure for Geospatial Information”, which has been prepared by 
the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change and will be signed by the 
entire Cabinet.
Q: I see that in certain cases, geospatial data have errors!
Unfortunately, we cannot do anything about this fact, other than to highlight 
existing problems that have accumulated to date. The public administration 
procured and produced geospatial data of poor quality. The law on "National 
Infrastructure for Geospatial Information" sets the necessary legislative 
framework so that from now on, we do not make the same mistakes. However, 
existing geospatial data, until they are corrected and replaced, will continue 
to have problems.
Here we ask for your help. Whenever you find problems and errors in the data, 
contact us. Soon you will be able through geodata.gov.gr to correct the data on 
the map!

---------------------------------------------------------
Athanasiou Spiros
Institute for the Management of Information Systems
"Athena" Research and Innovation Center in
Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies
Tel:     (+30) 210 6990 522, (+30) 6977 54 78 99
e-mail:  spathan at imis.athena-innovation.gr
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On 21:59, Ton Zijlstra wrote:
>
> PS: Got interesting news about Open Data or Public Service Information
> (PSI) and its reuse? Let me know! I'm a news editor at ePSIplatform.eu
> and always looking for news items.
> -------------------------------------------
> Interdependent Thoughts