1. Introduction to the
COBWEB project
Fri 23rd Nov, 2012,
GEO-IX Plenary,
Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.
Chris Higgins,
Project Coordinator,
EDINA National Data Centre,
University of Edinburgh.
chris.higgins@ed.ac.uk

2. The bare bones…
• Project started 1st Nov, 2012 and will run for 4 yrs
• Funded under the European Commission’s
Framework Programme 7 (Grant No: 308513)
• Crowdsourced environmental data to aid decision
making
• Introduce quality measures and reduce uncertainty
• Fusion of crowdsourced data with reference data…
• Spatial Data Infrastructure - like initiatives
– National SDI’s in UK, Greece and Germany
– INSPIRE
– GEOSS

3. FP7-ENV-2012 observatories
Name Lead Topic
Citclops Barcelona Digital Coast and ocean
Centre Tecnològic optical
(Spain) monitoring
WeSenseIt University of Water
Sheffield (UK) Management
CITI-SENSE Nilu (Norway) Air quality
Omniscientis Spacebel (Belgium) Odour
monitoring
COBWEB UEDIN (UK) Various

4. Project Partners
University of Edinburgh UK (Scotland)
University of Nottingham UK (England)
Aberystwyth University UK (Wales)
Welsh Assembly Government UK (Wales)
Environment Systems Limited UK (Wales)
Ecodyfi UK (Wales)
Open Geospatial Consortium (Europe) Limited UK
University College Dublin Ireland
Technische Universitaet Dresden Germany
Secure Dimensions GmbH Germany
University of Western Greece Greece
OIKOM – Environmental Studies Ltd Greece
GeoCat BV Netherlands

5. Essential context - WNBR
• UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programmes
(MAB) World Network of Biosphere Reserves
– Sites of excellence to foster harmonious integration
of people and nature for sustainable development
through participation, knowledge sharing, poverty
reduction and human well-being improvements,
cultural values and society's ability to cope with
change, thus contributing to the Millennium
Development Goals
• 610 reserves in 117 countries

6. Essential context - GEOSS
• COBWEB is obliged to work within GEOSS
framework
• common methodologies and standards for data
archiving, discovery and access
• Section on collaboration with GEOSS and
FP7-ENV-2012 cluster projects added to
project description
• “Data collected should be made available
through the GEOSS without any restrictions”

7. Authentication and GEOSS
• “…addressing questions of privacy…”
• COBWEB about environmental, not personal data
• Some kinds of protected data that may be
encountered during the project:
– Personal information, eg, expert or novice observer
– Location protected species
– Reference data from European National Mapping and
Cadastral Agencies
– Conflated data
• Authentication workshop here 2 days ago…

8. Why put effort into federated access control?
• Authentication is the process of verifying that
claims made concerning a subject, eg, identity, who
is attempting to access a resource are true
• Frequently, SDI content and service providers need
to know who is accessing their valuable resource
• The ability for a group of organisations with common
objectives, ie, a federation, to securely exchange
authentication information is a powerful SDI enabler
• Identified as a priority in GEOSS
– Architecture Implementation Pilot 5
– GEO Infrastructure Implementation Board

9. Single Sign On Federation
Federation Service
SP
Providers SP
SP
IdP
Identity
IdP
Providers
Organisations, SP
eg, space
agencies
SP Coordinating
Centre
IdP SP SP
SP SP
Users
Authenticates here
SP
IdP

10. Conclusions
• We want to pilot Access Management
Federation (AMF) technology within GEOSS
– We strongly recommend building on existing
infrastructure, eg, existing AMFs
• Is your organisation interested in participating or
knowing more?
• If so, please contact me or find us at the
COBWEB stand here at GEO-IX:
chris.higgins@ed.ac.uk