| Title | An analysis of the FAIRness of water related datasets on the Government of Canada's 'Open Maps' platform |
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| Author | McGrath, H ;
Harrison, A; Salisbury, L; Denny, S; Fuss, C |
| Source | Geomatica 2021., https://doi.org/10.1139/geomat-2020-0021 |
| Image |  |
| Year | 2021 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20210255 |
| Publisher | Canadian Science Publishing |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | paper; digital; on-line |
| File format | pdf; html |
| Subjects | Science and Technology; Nature and Environment; Government and Politics; surface waters; groundwater; provenance; DANS SATIFYD FAIR score; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Environment and Climate
Change Canada; Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Parks Canada; Statistics Canada; Water; Open data; Open government; Geographic data; Accessibility; Federal government; Federal departments; Government information;
Metadata; Classification |
| Illustrations | tables; screen captures; plots |
| Program | Canada Centre for Remote Sensing Canada Centre for Remote Sensing Water Program |
| Released | 2021 11 05 |
| Abstract | The Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO) branch of Natural Resources Canada is supporting geographic analysis and evidence-based decision making by delivering core geospatial data
that are accurate, dynamic, authoritative, and accessible. One role of CCMEO is in the dissemination of spatial datasets to Canadian citizens and the broader public. Over time, the volume of data, contributors, file formats, types, and frequency of
data updates has increased. CCMEO is working diligently to ensure that the datasets it provides are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) to support the Government of Canada's commitment to 'openness and expansion of data
resources'. In this study, we undertake an environmental scan of the Government of Canada collection of geospatial datasets related to the theme of 'water' to evaluate how FAIR the data are and assess how close the available geospatial data are to
meeting the federal government's stated commitment. The data were tested with the online FAIR self-assessment tool SATIFYD from Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS). The computed average over the collection is 70% (or 3.5/5) with datasets
from Statistics Canada achieving the highest average rating. Key areas to improve the FAIR score include adding a globally unique and persistent identifier, domain standardized vocabulary (where possible), improving the metadata by adding provenance
information and data or workflow process descriptions, linked data, and citation information. Other considerations to improve the ability to identify relevant search results include a new hierarchical categorization scheme and an improved method to
filter results per a feature-based location search. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
The Government of Canada is committed to Openness and Expansion of data resources. This work provides a review of how findable, accessible, interoperable
and reusable (FAIR) the geospatial data available on the FGP is. This is analyzed by putting the data records through two external tests and the results are validated. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 328885 |
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