Welcome to the Digital National Framework
The digital national framework (DNF) is an industry standard for integrating and sharing business and geographic information from multiple sources.
Latest News...
‘Everything happens somewhere’
The DNF Expert Group welcomes the publication of Place Matters: the Location Strategy for the UK (UK LS) launched by Baroness Andrews, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State last week. The report was produced by the Geographic Information Panel at the request of Yvette Cooper, the Minister for the GI Panel to provide a framework that will maximise the value of geographic information for the benefit of the public, government and UK industry.
Among the stakeholders consulted in the development of the UK LS drawn across public, private and academic sectors were a number of DNF Expert Group members. Since 2005 DNF has promoted ‘collect once, use many times’ as a fundamental principle to integrating and sharing business and geographic information from multiple sources. The DNF Expert Group has produced a number of technical guides and other papers as well as an online service to register feature catalogues and identifiers to enable the linking and exchange of information.
DNF is specifically mentioned in the UK Location Strategy; the work done by National Underground Asset Group using DNF principles is included as an example of cost-effective sharing of information across public and private sectors.
The Location Strategy sets out a Five-Point Action Plan for public services that will help them to:
- know what data we have and avoid duplicating it
- use common reference data so we know we are talking about same places
- share the data easily through common technology, standards and business relationships
- gain the appropriate skills to support its use
- drive strong governance to enable change which will be led by the Location Council which is being set up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will now take this Strategy forward through the newly created UK Location Council. The Council will meet for the first time on Friday 28 November and will continue the work of the GI Panel which is now disbanded.
The UK Location Strategy document can be read in full at:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/
communities/locationstrategy
A DNF Demonstrator has been developed to provide practical examples of how DNF enables relationships to be generated and reused between spatial data from different sources. To view the practical hands-on demonstrator click
here
Other News
- A new case study has been produced by Staffordshire County Council and 1Spatial. Using Digital National Framework (DNF) principles, they have worked together to prove and achieve an open and interoperable solution to data management across the county. Click here to read the case study.
- The DNF registry now includes a register of coordinate reference system parameters. Click here to have a look.
- A lot of work has been done recently by a DNF working group on Feature Cataloguing. We have developed a methodology for creating and publishing catalogues so that people can better understand the spatial contents of available datasets. This will be made available for all to use shortly. We have also been busy creating catalogues for three key spatial data providers, which will be made available through a new section of the DNF registry as soon as they have been approved. A document discussing the criteria for DNF base reference objects, along with an initial list from OS MasterMap has been created. Click here to download the document.
- DNF have developed an XML schema to support data association. This is currently in draft form pending a trial. DNF is looking for organisations interested in being part of the trial. For details of the schema and the trial, click here.
- The Atlantis Initiative, a collaborative project that is working on ways to provide better information to address the impact of climate change and flood risks, is now live on the Internet. click here to read more.
Recent Events
DNF at AGI 2008
The DNF (Digital National Framework) Expert Group hosted an informal drinks reception over lunch on day 2 of the AGI Conference last week. The star draw was the DNF Demonstrator shown by creator Ed Scrase of Manchester Geomatics. Ed was kept so busy explaining DNF principles using the practical, hands-on presentation that he didn’t get time for lunch!
Those of you who missed the event, can view the DNF Demonstrator at http://87.237.56.33/DNFDemo
The event was especially designed to support the many topics that had been discussed from both days at the conference. It offered delegates an opportunity to explore and discuss issues relating to DNF, INSPIRE and the Transformation to Citizen-Centric Services with our team of experts.
- Les Rackham, DNF Technical Working Group
- Keith Murray, Chair of the DNF Expert Group and INSPIRE Drafting Team member
- Brian Higgs, DNF Advocate for Local Government
