Statement of Work

=OSM-GB Project - Statement of Work=

Background
OSM-GB is a project lead by the Centre for Geospatial Science in partnership with 1Spatial and with additional input and advice from stakeholders including Local Government and members of the OpenStreetMap community to create a quality enhanced and topologically structured version of GB coverage of OSM projected in BNG.

OSM-GB will be hosted using open source GIS software where possible and available as a WMS, WFS and tile service. The vector data will also be freely available on the same terms as the original OSM data. The service will be refreshed at regular intervals to incorporate the continuous flow of updates within the master OSM database.

The OSM-GB service is anticipated to meet the needs of “professional” users within public sector (particularly Local Government) and the commercial B2B market. All improvements made to OSM-GB will be offered back to the core OSM project.

A non-technical objective of the project is to encourage the users of the data to become data creators within the OSM database, no edits will be made into the OSM-GB version.

Potential Research Themes
The research purpose of the OSM-GB collaborative research programme is to examine methods to model the relationship between geographical features represented in the Open Street Map (OSM) crowd-sourced database and complementary features in authoritative and quality-controlled Ordnance Survey datasets such as MasterMap or ITN. In particular the research in interested in the following staged objectives: Development of a re-engineered version, OSM-GB, of the OSM database using the 1Spatial Radius Studio software suite. The aim is to develop Radius Studio rules to select features, improve the consistency of feature attribution (or tagging), improve data topology; to output the resulting dataset in the British National Grid (preferably using the full OSTN02 transformation); and to produce quality metrics reporting on the errors and warnings regarding the source data. The intention is that the rules will be generated with the aid of external community inputs, e.g. from Surrey Heath Borough Council (www.surreyheath.gov.uk/) who have been using OSM as a partial replacement for Ordnance Survey data within their business. It is also envisaged that multiple rule sets may be developed within the research, representing different requirement priorities. Development of a methodology for incorporation of change-only updates into the OSM-GB database. Research into the requirements for the frequency of version snapshots and their maintenance in the system. Integration of OSM and Ordnance Survey data to produce a regularly updated “best of breed” dataset. Typical OS products which could be explored include MasterMap, ITN, Vector Map Local. An element of research is to define what “best of breed” means and hence what the rule sets might be for this form of integration. Particularly, how can the folksonomy of OSM tags be reconciled with the formal schema and ontology of the Ordnance Survey data? Can we asses how the inclusion of OS Open Data into OSM has changed the properties of the data?

A further aim of the project is to support the use and uptake of the OSM-GB data and to feed data and comments about data quality back to the OSM project. The aim of this is to build a community to feed back on the rules via the nature of the OSM-GB product and the utility of the data quality reports for OSM.

It is recognised that research themes may evolve during the extents of the project. Any material change in scope or direction will be agreed between the partners in advance. Timelines and Milestones

An outline of the phases of the project is given below. All timings are elapsed time from the initiation of the project.

Phase 1 (Months 1-3)
Set up infrastructure Recruit researcher Decide on research priorities Decide on testing methods Create project web site / wiki Recruit external members of the Steering Group Generate initial OSM processing rules in Radius Studio & test Review Mapnik stylesheets for rendering OSM-GB data Generate first public outputs as WMS, available initially to selected partners Test with users

Phase 2 (Months 4-9)
Initial research Review outputs of research Implement further data access mechanisms (WFS, XAPI) + project web map viewer Review & expose selected services to broader community comment Refine Studio rules Second phase of research: change-only updates (to us, and as our outputs) Testing Refine research objectives for Phase 3 Community and user kickoff workshop

Phase 3 (Months 9-15)
Review outputs of research Evaluate quality reports Refine Studio rules Develop rules for OSM/OS merged product(s) and test Initial exploration of the opportunities for semantic matching of folksonomic and ontological data Consider business models and sources of funding to allow project to be sustained beyond the end of initial funding (academic, business, EU) Community and user workshop and project review

Phase 4 (Months 15-16)
Final report and assessment of project by partners Agree next steps