Cobweb: In Pursuit of Conclusions
- 1. COBWEB
In Pursuit of Conclusions
Dr. Andreas Matheus
andreas.matheus@secure-dimensions.de
01June 2016
- 2. In the beginning…
• … there was stakeholder engagement
• … and we tried to understand where can
COBWEB actually contribute towards
improving/influencing environmental policy
making (even though we had a pretty clear
idea what that might be)
• … we designed and built an architecture
that would help to produce answers
• … we did co-design
- 3. The technical aspects – COBWEB “core” is Open Source
• Survey Designer (Web Browser GUI)
• COBWEB App to run surveys:
• public: Anyone can participate
• login & participate: Basically anyone on the
Internet (Gmail, Facebook, COBWEB)
• on invitation: The Survey Manager selects
(known) users
• COBWEB Middleware Services
• QA, Viewer and Standards based output
- 4. The technical aspects – Security & Privacy
• Ensure privacy for collaborating users
• compliance with 95/46/EC
• Ensure wellbeing of creatures
• survey results can be sensitive, e.g.
endangered species, time & location
• Supporting users with social media login
• Supporting the different survey types
- 5. The technical aspects – Conclusion
• Use of Open Standards where possible
and applicable to ensure interoperability
• OGC, OASIS, W3C, IETF
• COBWEB is a distributed architecture with
different Technology Readiness Levels
• COBWEB is a Research Project
• COBWEB “core” and security is high TRL
• Question (for later): Do you know any
solution that does what COBWEB does?
- 6. In pursuit of conclusions - Part 1
• Applied the architecture to involve citizens
and professionals making observations
• public: Japanese Knotweed (Wales)
• login & participate: Dolphins (Wales)
• on invitation: Dog waste bag* (Germany)
• Could publish into GEOSS
• But so far results are considered test data
• GEOSS does not support data sharing for
protected data
*: Producing real data but restricted access
- 7. In pursuit of conclusions – Part 2
• Do we have answers to the daring question
“Are we improving/influencing…?”
• First result (draft): Invasive Species / JKW
• “COBWEB has successfully demonstrated
involving citizens collecting evidence of
Invasive Species
• rapid turnaround between volunteers and
• standards based provisioning of results to policy
making bodies (Welsh Government)”
[Welsh Government]
- 8. In pursuit of conclusions – Part 3
• Uptake, or what remains as future work
• COBWEB activity in developing a data
model to publish results (observations)
• OGC Sensor Web Enablement
• OGC Observations and Measurements
• W3C Semantics
• Acronym: SWE4CS
• Leading partner OGC Europe
• Dr. Ingo Simonis talk coming up shortly
- 9. In pursuit of conclusions – COBWEB has delivered
• Developed methods of how to apply Citizen
Science across Europe
• Involvement with feet on the ground (Co-
design, GEOSS, GEPW, OGC, etc.)
• A high TRL system to practise with
• Collected data in different formats via
standards based interfaces
• Implications for policy making (early draft
results) – more to come…
- 10. Pursuit of conclusions – COBWEB dissemination
• COBWEB past events
• GEO-IX, GEO-X, GEO-XI, GEO-XII
• GEPW and INSPIRE events
• COBWEB most recent event
• JRC and ECSA events
• OGC Technical Committee meetings
• Citizen Science: Nottingham, Sydney, D.C.
• OGC TC Meeting in Dublin next June
• COBWEB summit on 21st June - Open to YOU!
- 11. Thank you for paying attention!
It is important,
not to stop being innovative...
Secure Dimensions GmbH
Holistic Geosecurity
Dr. Andreas Matheus
Waxensteinstr. 28
D-81377 München, Germany
Email am@secure-dimensions.de
Web www.secure-dimensions.de