Aiman Shahpurwala Spring 2019

---

Aiman Shahpurwala 
Spring 2019 
Exercise 1.2.2: Explore and Identify GeoPortals Capabilities 
 
Assignment 
In the previous lesson, we ask you to describe your 
​
national SDI
​
. The best way to get this 
information is from the SDI's GeoPortal. Since GeoPortals are front doors for SDI, in this 
exercise we ask you to explore and evaluate other SDI GeoPortals. 
Remember: you are just evaluating the GeoPortal, not the SDI. 
Identify common capabilities among the GeoPortals and them select 10 capabilities to report for 
each GeoPortal. The capabilities are like: 
● search data and service 
● download data 
● geovisualization 
● metadata,
● etc 
Answer with a 10x3 matrix, where you can put the 3 GeoPortals side by side. Each row should 
name a capability, and the value should be 'yes', 'no' or 'partially'. 
Your report main content is the evaluation matrix. Include also the GeoPortals selected for the 
exercise and a short description of each capacity and how it was evaluated (just present/not 
present; good/fair/bad; etc). 

---

Aiman Shahpurwala 
Spring 2019 
Report 
 
1. U.S. Geoplatform Description
​: ​
https://www.geoplatform.gov/help/apps/
  
According to 
​
www.geoplatform.gov
​
, the U.S. GeoPlatform was developed by the Federal 
Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) through collaboration with partners and stakeholders. 
Geoplatform has been designed for the federal, state, local, and Tribal governments as well as the 
private sector, academia, for use by the general public. The GeoPlatform provides a search 
application for all the geospatial datasets published on data.gov from both federal and 
non-federal agencies. In this search you can filter by keywords, geography, location, search 
facet, and you can also sort your results. You can also search for helpful services provided by 
various agencies involved. You can create and save maps or browse the galleries of published 
maps through ArcGIS Online. There are also GeoPlatform Communities where individuals or 
organizations can share information over various topics or events of interest. The topics covered 
are from the National Geospatial Data Initiatives (NGDA’s) 17 themes.
2.  
​Finland Geoportal: ​
https://kartta.paikkatietoikkuna.fi/?lang=en
 
The Paikkatietoikkuna is a governmental effort, to meet the goals of the INSPIRE project. This 
geoportal allows the access to different geographic services and geographic information of the 
Finish territory provided by different organisations in the country. The Paikkatietoikkuna 
collects around 32 themes or spatial data sets that can be accessed and combined by the users, 
also makes possible to share information following different standards. 
3. Colombia National Geographic Portal: 
​
http://www.icde.org.co/
 
The Colombian National Geographic Portal is an initiative to integrate different National 
Geoportals with different subject focus such as ecosystems, hazards, infrastructure, economy 
etc., having as a common spatial unit the region but also reaching description levels at the scale 
of the city. One of the main characteristics of the geoportal is the possibility of visualizing and 
downloading datasets; however more advanced qualities such as spatial analysis online, sharing 
maps and others are more limited, being restricted to very specific sub-geoportals. Another 
drawback of this geoportal is that this still does not include all the spatial information in only one 
platform,in contrast to the geoportal of Finland. For this reason, it was necessary to explore 
different sub-geoportals each with their own way of presenting the information making it 
difficult to rapidly display multi-variable datasets. 

---

Aiman Shahpurwala 
Spring 2019 
Capability 
U.S. Geoplatform 
Finland GeoPortal 
Colombia National 
Geographic Portal 
Search and Data 
Service 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Download Data 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Geovisualization 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Metadata 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Create/Edit/Upload 
Features 
Yes 
Yes 
No* 
Community Creation/ 
Participation 
Yes 
No 
No 
Simple Spatial Data 
Analysis 
Yes 
Yes 
No* 
Personal Account 
Creation 
Yes 
Yes 
No* 
Share/Embed Maps 
Yes 
Yes 
No 
Publishing maps to 
the database 
Yes 
Yes 
No 
*Property not available for the National geoportal but available on sub-geoportals 
developed for thematic(environmental, energy) or by region.