Concepción contextual dialéctica

Analyzing the INSPIRE directive, we have concluded that the set of artefact roles defined in section 2.3.4 can be used to model INSPIRE artefacts from the Enterprise

Viewpoint of the RM-ODP. This set could be extended, but it includes the basic nec- essary concepts:

• Although spatial assets do not exist explicitly in INSPIRE, spatial data sets and spatial data services, at least, would fulfill this role.

• Arts. 8 and 11 present some fundamental resources that can be modelled as core spatial assets.

• The INSPIRE geo-portal, defined in Art. 15, is a communication channel, an SDI catalog (supported by some discovery services (Art. 11)) and it may be considered also a core spatial asset.

• Metadata are fundamental in INSPIRE, there is a whole chapter of the directive for them (chapter II), and correspond to spatial asset metadata.

2.4.4 Enterprise Objects

As explained in section 2.3.5, the pattern includes some generic enterprise objects that can fulfill the roles defined to achieve the objectives of an SDI. Besides these, the INSPIRE directive includes several other elements that can be modelled as enterprise objects too:

• Spatial data sets, spatial data services and the INSPIRE geo-portal are very similar to, or subtypes of, those objects with similar names proposed in section 2.3.5.

• Public authority may be a subtype of organization and/or person with certain public responsibilities.

• A third party may also be a subtype of organization and/or person.

• European institutions and bodies can be modelled also as subtypes of organiza- tions, or possibly as a subtype of public authority.

• The directive mentions explicitly the EU Commission and the European Envi- ronment Agency, that would be modelled as object instances of European insti- tutions.

2.4.5 Policies

As a European Community directive, INSPIRE is full of rules that can be modelled as policies. As this directive is a legal mandate to establish a European SDI, it is expected that most of these rules will be included, and possibly extended, in the policies ruling that SDI. Table 2.8 shows a possible relationship between INSPIRE articles and the policies proposed in section 2.3.6.

Table 2.8: A possible relationship between INSPIRE articles and the policies defined in table 2.5

Policy INSPIRE articles

Governance policy Art. 19: There is an INSPIRE coordinator at the European level, assisted by some organizations.

Role assignment pol- icy

Art. 4 establishes which datasets and services are covered by the directive (i.e., which datasets and services will take the role of spatial assets in INSPIRE). Art. 19: The IN- SPIRE coordinator will be the European Commission. The Commission will also fulfill the role of contact in the inter- actions with Member State contact points. The European Environment Agency will be assisted by the INSPIRE coor- dinator. In different articles, public authorities are allowed to take different roles (user, contributor, contact). In dif- ferent articles, third parties are allowed to take different roles (user, contributor).

Table 2.8: A possible relationship between INSPIRE articles and the policies defined in table 2.5

Policy INSPIRE articles

Infrastructure policy Art. 21: Member states must monitor their SDIs and report to the European Commission. Art. 23: The Commission will report on the implementation of INSPIRE to the European Parliament.

Standards policy Art. 7: it requires to establish some implementation rules in order to address interoperability and harmonization issues in data sets and services. Art. 10: information needed for compliance with Art. 7 will be made available. Art. 12: Member States will ensure that public authorities and third parties are given the technical possibility to link their com- pliant services to those provided by them. Art. 16: rules for implementing network services as they have been estab- lished in the directive will be developed, including technical specifications. Art. 20: the implementation rules will take into consideration standards adopted by European and other International standardisation bodies.

Table 2.8: A possible relationship between INSPIRE articles and the policies defined in table 2.5

Policy INSPIRE articles

Foundation policy Art. 8: The implementation rules mentioned in Art. 7 will es- tablish how to address certain harmonization aspects for the spatial data sets corresponding to the themes listed in An- nexes I and II of the directive. These harmonized data sets, and some other elements listed in Art. 8 (unique identifiers framework, multilingual thesauri, consistency rules among spatial objects etc.) will be INSPIRE core spatial assets, so the part of the implementation rules addressing this will be part of the foundation policy. Art. 11 establishes several network services that must be provided by Member States to discover, view, download, transform and interconnect spatial data services.

Quality policy Art. 5.3: Member States must ensure their metadata are of enough quality. Besides this, the Implementation Rules mentioned in Art. 16 may establish quality parameters on different components of INSPIRE (performance requirements for network services, mandatory fields for metadata etc.). Promotion policy There are not any activities that should obviously be consid-

ered promotional in the directive. Nevertheless, third par- ties may be involved as users, contributors etc., and Member States must be sure their public authorities benefit from IN- SPIRE: these activities may involve promotion.

Education policy Art. 18 includes a mention to the necessity to provide infor- mation on existing practices to the different actors in their SDIs.

Table 2.8: A possible relationship between INSPIRE articles and the policies defined in table 2.5

Policy INSPIRE articles

Funding policy Art. 24 establishes the obligation for Member States to make the necessary laws, regulations and provisions to comply with INSPIRE: this includes some funds.

Access policy Art. 5.2: Metadata will include information about conditions applying to access to spatial data sets and services. Art. 13: under some circumstances, Member States may limit public access to spatial data sets and services. Art. 14: some ser- vices must be free of charge, but some others may require some payment, provided there are some e-commerce service available for it. Art. 11: certain networks services will be established to allow for access to spatial data sets. Art. 15: Member States must make their services available through the INSPIRE geo-portal. Art. 17 indicates some general guidelines for the sharing and access to spatial data sets. Membership policy Art. 2: INSPIRE shall build upon the Member State SDIs.

Art. 17 establishes some obligations for Member States in INSPIRE. Art. 18: Member States will coordinate the contri- bution of the different actors in their SDIs. Art. 19: Member States will designate contact points to work with the Euro- pean Commission.

2.4.6 Interactions and Processes

As objectives, actors, artefacts, objects and policies in INSPIRE are compatible with those proposed in the pattern, i.e. similar concepts or refinements of them, we expect

that it will be possible to model INSPIRE interactions and processes in a compatible way too. After all, interactions and processes are modelled for enterprise objects, that fulfill actor and artefact roles, to achieve objectives under the rules established by the policies.

An analysis of the INSPIRE directive allows us to find out references to behaviours that could be modelled as interactions, like those proposed in section 2.3.7. These interactions are shown in table 2.9.

Table 2.9: References in the INSPIRE directive to interac- tions compatible with those described in 2.3.7

Interaction Interaction in INSPIRE

Join/Leave SDI As Member States transpose INSPIRE to their laws, estab- lishing their SDIs as required, they will join the INSPIRE SDI. These interaction, as defined in section 2.3.7, require certain components:

• Several policies, described in section 2.4.5.

• A contact initiating the interaction: A Member State contact point.

• A contact responding to the interaction: The Euro- pean Commission.

• An operational body responding to the interaction: An assistant of the European Commission.

Member States are also responsible for establishing their SDIs according to their own political organization. Therefore, they will have to establish join, and possibly leave, interactions, although this is not addressed in the directive.

Table 2.9: References in the INSPIRE directive to interac- tions compatible with those described in 2.3.7

Interaction Interaction in INSPIRE Contribute spatial as-

set

There are many references in INSPIRE to contributions of spatial data and spatial data services. These contributions, modelled as the interaction proposed in section 2.3.7, require certain components:

• Several policies, described in section 2.4.5.

• A contributor initiating the interaction: A public au- thority or a third party.

• An operational body responding to the interaction: An assistant of the European Commission.

• An spatial asset being contributed: Those datasets and services indicated in Art. 4.

• An spatial asset metadata of the asset being con- tributed: The metadata described in Chapter II of the directive.

• A communication channel and an SDI catalog: The INSPIRE geo-portal may fulfill both roles.

Withdraw spatial as- set

When allowed, see for example Art. 13, Member states may withdraw, temporarily, a previously contributed asset. This interaction is similar to the contribute spatial asset. The only difference is that it does not require the spatial asset being withdrawn, only its metadata.

Table 2.9: References in the INSPIRE directive to interac- tions compatible with those described in 2.3.7

Interaction Interaction in INSPIRE

Access spatial asset This interaction is at the core of the objectives of any SDI, and INSPIRE is no exception. If modelled as the interaction proposed in section 2.3.7, it requires certain components:

• Several policies, described in section 2.4.5.

• A user initiating the interaction: users are not de- fined in INSPIRE, but they are taken into consideration many times in the directive.

• An operational body responding to the interaction: An assistant of the European Commission.

• A contributor responding to the interaction: The public authority or third party that originally con- tributed the asset being accessed may be required to access it.

• A communication channel and an SDI catalog: The INSPIRE geo-portal may fulfill both roles.

• An spatial asset being accessed: Those datasets and services indicated in Art. 4.

• An spatial asset metadata of the asset being ac- cessed: The metadata described in Chapter II of the directive.

Interactions and, especially, processes are in general too detailed to be described in a European directive. INSPIRE requires some implementation rules to detail some aspects, and surely these rules will address some processes, but these rules are still in development, and some of their results will be too detailed to be captured by a pattern as the one presented in this chapter. Metadata creation (Art. 6), information dissem- ination (Art. 10), network service establishment (Art. 11), monitoring infrastructures (Art. 21.1) or reporting (Art. 21.2) are some examples of behaviours included implicit or explicitly in the directive. A full architecture of INSPIRE should model these be- haviours, either as processes or as interactions, but this is beyond the scope of this work.