Links and Resources

1. Portal - geoportal

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The word "portal" means gate or entrance. It was adopted in mid-1990s, and refers to websites that serve as gateway to other websites. Geoportals are a gateway to geospaitial information, they bridge between Web-GIS servers and cleints (Fu and et.all., 2018).

Geoportal facilitate geospatial data sharing between providers and user, by giving providers an opportunity to publish their data and services and users an opportunity to find, assess and access to the published geospatial data and services. 

Geospatial Data and Service Providers publish the metadata – the description of geospatial data and services – to geoportals. Users can browse and search through the geoportals to find the relevant geospatial resources and evaluate their applicability.  Then user can contact to Publisher or provider of this resource or user can download, connect to data or services and use.

A Geoportal is an interface between a community of users and spatial data owners. It enables data producers to publish references to their spatial datasets and services. Users can search, find, visualize and assess the discovered spatial information.

2. Geoportal examples

A Geoportal represents a milestone in the transition from information ‘silos’ to information sharing, an approach that helps public organizations and private companies to save time and money and to focus their activities not on acquiring (maybe redundant) datasets, but on analyzing and generating better results.

Joseph Kerski and others have decided to list 10 useful Geospatial data portals . They assessed these portals as rich with content, easy to use, and with metadata that is available and understandable. Some geoportal allow for data to be streamed from web servers into your GIS software, and all allow data to be downloaded.

Read and explore 10 top geoportals listed by Joseph Kerski (2017).

3. Cloud GIS - Online platform

Cloud GIS

This refers to hosted services on the internet meant for users of GIS technology or members of public who want to access maps. Services include map service, data storage and access, powerful analysis with applications, to manage assets and information.

Let´s explore 3 Cloud GIS -online platforms:

1. One example is the WorldMap developed by Harvard. http://worldmap.harvard.edu/  The WorldMap platform enables users to share and integrate spatial data into online web applications. You can search and display the spatial information published in this platform. To add, create, modify or edit new layers, you have to register (using any email account).

2. Another example for a platform to share and exchange spatial data is ESRI’s ArcGIS Online Platform (http://www.arcgis.com ). Explore it with your organisational account or developers account.

If you do not have any account create one here.

3. And third has very simple name Cloud GIS -  GIS Cloud’s Map Portal is a customizable cloud based tool for visualizing, exporting and publishing geospatial data. There is free try is possible.

4. GIS-as-a-Service

GIS-as-a-Service is an extension of the Software-as-a-Service model for providing GIS solutions as a service, usually offering specializations in areas like incidence reporting, disaster and transport management. Many companies have developed products and apps offered as a service for a seamless management and integration of GIS workflows.

(Source: GIS lounge. Cloud GIS Service Models)