Finnish Open Data

Open Data policy of Finland

Mrs. Anne Kauhanen-Simanainen, Ministry of Finance, Public Sector ICT

Programme of the Finnish Government on June 2011 states: “Public data will be brought into the public domain in a computer-readable format and available for further processing”. After one year, several data openings have been happened and several others are on the way. National Land Survey of Finland opened their topographic datasets and Statistics Finland opened various municipality statistics. On 2013, Finnish Meteorological Institute will open their weather data information.

Mrs. Kauhanen-Simanainen will cover in her speech latest plans to open Finnish public data sources. She will also cover background information of Finnish Open Data Policy.


Open Geodata - an overview and first experiences in Finland

Mr. Antti Rainio  - National Land Survey of Finland

Geodata is open in large extent in Finland since the 1st of May 2012 when the National Land Survey of Finland (NLSF) has redeemed all topographic data including national map database, raster map series in different scales, orthoimagery and laser scanning data but some open service interfaces as well. This was possible as a pilot of the governments new data policy. Because of the huge amount of data NLSF has developed services to make download very easy. In addition the Finnish Environmental Institute, the Statistics Finland as well as some other data providers are offering open geodata. However the most interesting phenomena are the activities by user communities first to help the delivery and then to create new products and services based on the open geodata. Now the open spatial data infrastructure is becoming an ecosystem for new applications and other innovations in Finland.


The story of sharing environmental data

Ms. Minna Kallio, Finnish Environment Institute

We present the history, presence and future of open data produced by environmental administration. Finnish Environment Institute SYKE started free delivery of GIS data with Corine land cover data in 2004. It was soon followed by data download service, at the moment with over 30 datasets. The amount of data usage multiplied soon after removing of charges. In addition to that,  SYKE offers map services of the same datasets. Also an Internet map service on environmental data is being renovated at the moment.

GIS and research data sharing continues in LifeData project. The project implements the common data policy of  Finnish Partnership for Research on Natural Resources and the Environment together with other organisations. Operative remote sensing in products  datasets have also been freely available. The daily pictures of algal blooms in the Baltic Sea, water quality monitoring and snow melt are available throughout the periods of interest. Future plans include development of general user interface for the EO datasets and advanced web services. Algorithm and software development associated to data and computational models are partially done with open source tools. First experiences of releasing self-made open source software systems are being gathered. SYKE has also published a metadata portal to support the open use of the spatial datasets and web services. The metadata portal is based on Esri Geoportal Server, which is an open source product.


Open Data for the Real Economy: Comparing International and EU Open Data policies with the Greek experience (via the HOMERMED project)

Prodromos Tsiavos

A key assumption behind ?pen Data policies in the European and international level is that they constitute major factors of growth and job creation, mainly through the cutting of costs for e-government service provision and the enabling of value added service provision by the private sector. What the case of Greece illustrates is that while the reduction of costs in the provision of e-government services remains a key goal, the achievement of growth and the creation of jobs has to be primarily sought not in the market of information society services but rather in more traditional markets such as primary production and tourism. Comparisons will also be drawn with Finland. The talk will include preliminary results of the HOMER MED project.”

Session Host

Pekka Sarkola

Contributors

Anne Kauhanen-Simanainen, Antti Rainio, Minna Kallio, Prodromos Tsiavos

Details

Location: INSPIRE meeting room

Date & Time: Tuesday 18th, 11:30–13:00

Target Group: Those with an interest in Finnish Open Data

Topic Stream: Transparency and Accountability

Session Etherpad page: linked from http://okfestival.okfn.org/Tastream