Work packages

The project was organised in 11 Work Packages. They can be illustrated as in the figure below. The “GSP N” ovals represent the 14 other GeoERA projects.

The Work Package Coordinators are mentioned in the table below. Details (the objectives of the different Work Packages) can be found below the table.

WP1	Coordination. Lead: GEUS. Contact Jørgen Tulstrup
WP2	User Requirements, Lead: RBINS. Contact David Garcia
WP3	Standards and interoperability issues, Lead: ISPRA. Contact Carlo Cippoloni
WP4	Semantic harmonisation issues, Lead: GBA. Contact Martin Schiegl
WP5	Architecture, Lead: BRGM. Contact Jean-Baptiste Roquencourt
WP6	Developments (user oriented), Lead: GEUS. Contact Martin Hansen
WP7	Developments (central), Lead: GeoZS. Contact Andrej Vithelič
WP8	Data provider support, Lead: UKRI. Contact Patrick Bell.
WP9	Sustainability issues. Lead: GEUS. Contact Jørgen Tulstrup
WP10	IPR and data policy issues, Lead: UKRI. Contact Chris Luton
WP11	Communication and dissemination, Lead: IGME-ES. Contact Diana Ponce de León gil

WP1: Coordination
This work package was concerned with the overall financial, administrative and operational management of the project as well as coordinating activities (data management and trust) across work packages.
Specific objectives were:

• Perform daily management of the project (monitoring of progress; communication between partners and with the GeoERA Executive Board; financial management; reporting; decision making; conflict management).
• Define methods and guidelines for quality assurance, technical methods, configuration management, …
• Organise meetings of the Project Board and the Project Assembly and produce minutes of those meetings. The Project Assembly planned to meet at least four times back-to-back with the Kick-off meeting of the whole of GeoERA, at the end of Year 1 and Year 2 and with the Final meeting.

WP2: User Requirements
This Work Package was responsible for collecting the requirements from the other GeoERA projects and – in collaboration with other Work Packages – to turn this information into specification of the system.
Specific objectives were:

• Coordinate the interactions between the GSPs and the GIP-P
• List, describe and harmonize the requirements in terms of data infrastructure and display of the geoinformation produced as the scientific output of the themes GSPs.
• Assist the GSPs in writing their project specific Data Management Plans.
• Ensure that the scientific products use up to date technologies, appropriate standards and whenever necessary compile the needed extension to the European Geological Data Infrastructure (EGDI).

WP3: Standards and interoperability issues
The main objectives of this work package was to explore in detail the requirements and needs stemming from the other GSPs (mapped by WP2) in order to identify shortcomings in the data models. This should lead to the development of a set of data models taking into account existing standards and specific needs for extensions. In order to help the data and service producing GSPs, the task identified the rules to evaluate whether a given dataset was conformant with the relevant data model (a “conformance class”) and developed a data and service validation system to embed in the Information Platform in the Prototyping and Development phases. The technical requirements and documents produced by this package have been essential for WP 5/6/7 to develop a system able to manage different types of data and formats.

WP4: Semantic harmonisation issues
This Work Package initiated, designed and tested the development of vocabulary data within the framework of the whole GeoERA program. This included suggestions for a technical infrastructure for sustainable data storage, the organization of the editing and maintenance of the vocabularies, as well as the technical possibilities of coding data sets with vocabulary. The supported use cases were “Multilingual semantic text search” and “GeoERA project vocabularies” for coding GSP datasets with Linked Data (SKOS/RDF) concepts.
Specific objectives were:

• Establishing technologies to support better search capabilities (semantic, multilingual, …) on the data sets and services generated in the GSPs
• Evaluation of existing standard terminology – to compile a new multilingual keyword thesaurus
• Semantic text search functionality for metadata – to improve the search capabilities in EGDI metadata catalogue (user platform development in WP6 and data base development WP7).
• Enable project specific vocabularies (knowledge representations as Linked Open Data) publishing scientific terms and names – to harmonize the use of terms where a Europe wide nomenclature is not applicable (overall architectural design to integrate vocabulary data in WP5, data base development in WP7)
• Draft guidelines for working with Linked Data – to support “GeoERA project vocabularies”

WP5: Architecture
In order for the GIP-P to organise, disseminate and produce useful content for the GSPs a clear architecture must be defined both on the data and system aspect.
Building on pre-existing projects experience (OneGeology, EGDI, EPOS, and others) and recent international achievements (ex: W3C/OGC collaboration) WP5 will define the IT guidelines to be applied for the platform.
Specific objectives were:

• Define the blueprint of the GIP-P according to WP2 use-cases.
• Share the results of the GSPs according to interoperability and web-GIS best-practices.
• Organize the deployment/application of semantic and technical interoperability throughout the Information Platform.
• Data discoverability according to traditional OGC/INSPIRE practices, but also aligned with W3C guidelines.
• Define information flows from data providers to the GIP-P for each GSP.
• Articulate in a seamless system the GIP-P, EGDI and ultimately EPOS Geological Information and Modelling Thematic Core Service if practically feasible.

WP6: Developments (user oriented)
This work package carried out the development of all user-oriented interfaces and ascertained that information generated in the GSPs was made available in a user-friendly way as clearly as required by the call. User-friendliness is a combination of usability (intuitiveness) of the interfaces and the degree to which these interfaces fulfill the needs of the end users. The nature of the information to be provided through the GIP-P was decided in the GSPs and accordingly, these projects were the main source of information regarding relevant end user groups and their needs.
To ensure the highest level of success, an agile approach was applied through which persistent interactions with the other GSPs and WP2 facilitated continuous gathering of requirements and use cases as well as feedback on mock-ups and prototypes.
Specific objectives were:

• Implement requirements from the GSPs for optimal data representation on the portal.
• Give users an efficient state-of-the-art access to GeoERA data sets and products
• Extending the EGDI portal, including;
  • A more advanced content management system (CMS) that integrates to the GeoERA website GeoERA.eu.
  • GeoERA landing pages for each GSP including self-management.
  • An extended Web-GIS application with a new 3D viewer.
  • New applications for providing access to data as required by the thematic projects.
  • Seamless integration of the EGDI metadata database for optimal portal usability

WP7: Developments (backend)
The objective was to develop (upgrade / improve / optimize) various operational data management systems for the GSPs including harvesting systems, central databases, metadata system, system management tools, validation services, etc.. The platform has been based on and has extended results obtained during the development of the EGDI and results from WP2 and WP5.

WP8: Data Provider Support
The objectives were to empower the GSPs to disseminate and integrate data, information, interpretations and models resulting from their activities in a standards-based and interoperable manner through the EGDI platform.
It was also to provide a suite of support tools, channels and activities to facilitate data sharing through the EGDI including the generation of cookbooks, provision of buddy systems and mentoring networks, creation of eLearning resources and delivery of training workshops. And finally to build on data provider support provided in previous data sharing and interoperability projects such as OneGeology and EGDI by extending with new, novel support functions.

WP9: Sustainability issues
There has been numerous projects generating pan-European and more localised datasets that have been made accessible on the internet through projects funded by the EU and other sources over the last many years. Most of these have however seized to function a few years after implementation, as there has been no funding available to keep them alive.
One of the main goals of GeoERA has been to make the resulting data and assessments sustainable in a long period after the end of the ERA-NET. This work package had the objective of proposing such a sustainable solution for GeoERA both in terms of funding and governance of the platform (operation, maintenance and further development).

WP10: IPR and policy issues
In order for EGDI to perform both legally and efficiently it is essential that two requirements are met: (i) all information and knowledge used to make the GIP workable are free to use or licensed in such a way that makes use non-constrained, and (ii) geological information, results, models, etc created or derived as a result of the GSPs are free for reuse and preferably useable via Open Access. This is a common issue with Europe-wide projects, leaving it important to map any constraints on use of geological information and material and results: not to do so will leave participants open to potential legal action and stem the open use of results.
This work package aimed to:

• Gather information on the current issues surrounding open access data and existing blockages within the geodata geoscience marketplace in Europe and beyond
• Look at user and supplier requirements and work on a standard supplier licence to simplify and harmonise licensing for geodata.
• Examine issues around archiving and storage, legal risk and liability.

WP11: Communication and dissemination
The objective of this work package has to ensure that the results of the GIP-P have been transparent and that many organisations can use them directly or build upon them. The tasks of the WP were designed to plan and carry out effective communication and dissemination activities that reach targeted audiences and aimed to facilitate communication and a transparent interaction with the consortium members, and all relevant platforms and stakeholders, during and beyond the GeoERA.
Specific objectives were:

• To carry out its own communication and dissemination plan on the basis of the dissemination part of the GeoERA Dissemination and Exploitation Master Plan (both during the Project Implementation Phase and during the Project Exploitation Phase) (GeoERA WP5, Communication, Exploitation and Dissemination of the results) in order to promote the GIP and the results of the GSPs in line with the GIP-P objectives;
• To collaborate with EuroGeoSurveys and its members in creating a multi-platform approach to communicating GeoERA’s outputs and benefits to stakeholders (including tools, awareness activities, collaboration with stakeholder organisations);
• To identify and engage in new possible IP dissemination activities;
• To maximise the use of and transparent flow of information from the whole GeoERA;
• To measure the results of communication and dissemination activities, based on the established baseline targets set out in the GeoERA Dissemination and Exploitation Plan, and according to stakeholder groups and topics.