General information

Name of the solution: SIMAPS
Solution's owner: DIGIT, Interoperable Europe Initiative
This is v1.0.0 of the Semantic Interoperability Maturity Assessment of a Public Service (SIMAPS) survey.
This version of the SIMAPS survey has been released on 02 July 2020 on Joinup.
It is a user-friendly online questionnaire, designed as a self-assessment tool to assist public service owners to evaluate key semantic interoperability aspects of their digital public service.
The current version of SIMAPS (SIMAPS v1.0.0) is available at the EU survey portal: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/SIMAPS_v_1_0_0
The release is composed of the following elements:
- SIMAPS v1.0.0 EU Survey portal; the SIMAPS survey is available at the EU Survey portal.
- SIMAPS v1.0.0 User Guide; a PDF document describing the user guide of SIMAPS including the SIMAPS model and the SIMAPS survey.
- SIMAPS v1.0.0 Publication on Joinup; the public web page (https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/imaps-interoperability-maturity-assessment-public-service/solution/simaps/about) describing SIMAPS version 1.0.0.
- SIMAPS v1.0.0 Recommendations; a PDF document which provides the tailored recommendations for each possible questionnaire’s answer and presents how the recommendations are generated.
- SIMAPS v1.0.0 Value Proposition; a PDF document which provides the value proposition of SIMAPS v1.0.0
- SIMAPS v1.0.0 Release; an archive containing each of the above mentioned files.
The SIMAPS implements the following:
Principles
Interoperability layers
Conceptual model
SIMAPS implements the following EIF recommendations as explained below:
-
Recommendation 1 | Subsidiarity and proportionality
SIMAPS is a self-assessment tool, designed for public service owners to evaluate key semantic behavioural interoperability aspects of their digital public service.
-
Recommendation 5 | Transparency
Question D11 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses whether the public service makes its data, information and knowledge delivered clearly understood by its end users.
-
Recommendation 7 | Reusability
Questions C5 of the Service Consumption section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses the readiness of a public service to consume data coming from other MS by examining the means under which this data consumption takes place.
-
Recommendation 9 | Technological neutrality and data portability
Questions D13 and D14 of the Service section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assess the level of reuse of existing, published data for the purpose of other, new applications. The greater the level of data reuse by other public services and by other public administrations, the better, as it ensures sustainable (semantic) interoperability among them.y systems compliant with e-accessibility specifications.
-
Recommendation 14 | Inclusion and accessibility
Question D1 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses the semantic behavioural interoperability specifications of the data, information and knowledge delivered by a public service, by determining how easily the data delivered by another public service can be accessed by systems compliant with e-accessibility specifications.
-
Recommendation 16 | Multilingualism
Question D5 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses to what extent the data delivered by a public service are being made available in more than one language.
-
Recommendation 23 | Interoperability governance
Question D2 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses at what extent the public service owners undertake activities towards establishing open data semantically aligned at national or EU level.
-
Recommendation 30 | Semantic interoperability
SIMAPS assesses the behavioural aspects of a digital public service, from the semantic interoperability viewpoint. Question D7 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses whether semantic formats (Linked Data, RDF) are being used as a data format for data delivered by the public service.
-
Recommendation 31 | Semantic interoperability
SIMAPS assesses the behavioural aspects of a digital public service, from the semantic interoperability viewpoint. Question D7 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses whether the semantic formats used by a public services are defined bilaterally between MSs, under EU/international level standards/specs or, based on the semantic interoperability specifications listed in ELIS (e.g. Resource Description Framework - RDF).
-
Recommendation 32 | Semantic interoperability
Question D3 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses whether the public service delivers semantically aligned data at the same sector, a cross-sector level, at a national level or at a trans-EU level. Furthermore, question C5 of the Service Consumption section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses the readiness of a public service to consume data coming from other MS by examining the means under which this data consumption takes place.
-
Recommendation 41 | Open data
Questions C2 and C3 of the Service Consumption section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assess the semantic behavioural interoperability specifications of the data, information and knowledge consumed by a public service, by examining the extent of reusability of public data by another public service. The more the integration of public data to the public service, the better for establishing smooth interoperation among them.
-
Recommendation 42 | Open data
Question C4 of the Service Consumption section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses the consumption of Linked Open Data sets from a public service. The higher the integration of LOD, the more advanced the public service is in terms of semantic alignment with the data.
-
Recommendation 44 | Catalogues
Question D10 of the Service Delivery section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses how easily the data delivered by a public service are being discovered either by another public service or by an end-user. It focuses on the means that publish the data and trigger/enable the awareness of the consumers (public service or end-user).
Furthermore, question C14 of the Service Consumption section of the SIMAPS questionnaire assesses the mechanisms that the public service has in place to effectively and efficiently discover the already published data.