GeoREST at Where 2.0

Next week is Where 2.0 in San Jose, California and Haris Kurtagic and I are going to be there to talk about GeoREST.

 Transparency in government promotes accountability and provides information to citizens about what their Government is doing.  An area where Web 2.0 technologies have an important role to play is providing access to raw geospatial data. 

Searching for raw geospatial data is a challenge, because it is not the same as finding the location or a map of something where you can use Google Maps or Bing Maps.  You typically will start by going to a site like data.gov, data.gov.uk, geogratis.gc.ca, or data.vancouver.ca, where you will be presented with a data catalog with a list of datasets.   At this point you realize that this is more complicated than finding the locations using Google Maps or Bing Maps. 

Wouldn't it be simpler if you could simply go to google.com or bing.com, enter something about what you are searching for like an address, and immediately be directed to the raw data.  GeoREST allows you to do this.  GeoREST, which is developed and supported by the open source geospatial community (geoREST.org), exposes a geospatial data API to web clients, but one of the most important advantages of GeoREST is that it relies on the technologies underlying the Web, HTTP, HTML, and MIME to provide search capabilities for raw geospatial data.  GeoREST has been implemented at the City of Nanaimo, BC.

Comments

[Brian Timoney]

Geoff:

This message can't be emphasized enough--good to see you and Haris spreading the word.

I'm giving a workshop on the very topic here in Colorado in a couple of weeks (as a fundraiser for the local URISA chapter's scholarship fund)
and I'll be sure to plug GeoREST.

http://www.rm-urisa.org/news.html

Take Care,

Brian Timoney