Glossary

This page lists important terms and their definitions in the context of the European Location Framework.

Application: Software for mobile or desktop devices that includes a user interface
Authoritative data: Data that are kept and updated by a trusted source and used through the national spatial data infrastructure in the variations on scale and details required.
Cached ELF data: Intermediate copies of ELF data to improve the speed with which the data is displayed or used
Cascaded ELF data: ELF data that is provided through an ELF service that is accessed from another spatial data service without caching the data
Cloud GIS platform: Cloud computing platform that supports mapping and analysing geographic information
ELF: The European Location Framework, a technical infrastructure which delivers authoritative, interoperable geospatial reference data from all over Europe for analysing and understanding information connected to places and features.
ELF application: Application using ELF data alone or in combination with other data
ELF business model: Description of how the objectives of the ELF can be achieved, considering the regulatory, financial and governance context
ELF data: Geospatial reference data including vector and raster data in accordance with one or more ELF specifications and made available through ELF. It will also include map tiles generated from vector data and cached in ELF.
ELF data owner: Intellectual property owner of ELF Data
ELF data provider: Legal entity providing ELF data under agreement with the ELF Owner and/or an ELF Data Owner
ELF data provider service: ELF Service provided by an ELF Data Provider for use on the ELF Platform
ELF data specification: Specification for production of ELF data providing a detailed description of spatial datasets provided by ELF Data Providers as harmonized geospatial reference data for Europe at different levels of detail together with additional information that will enable the data to be created.
ELF geo-tool: Geo-tool configured to support ELF data
ELF licences: The licence terms for ELF Data.
ELF owner: Legal entity owning the concept of ELF as developed in the ELF Project and responsible for the operations of ELF
ELF platform: ELF services, ELF applications and other components that are operated under the responsibility of ELF Data Provider(s) or the ELF Owner.
ELF product: A market offering from ELF that conforms to an ELF Product Specification and includes terms for access and licensing
ELF product specification: Specification based on the ELF data specifications providing a detailed description of a dataset or dataset series together with additional information that will enable the datasets to supplied to and used by another party through an ELF service.
ELF project: 44 month project, co-funded under the ICT PSP programme of the European Commission (Project reference 325140). This has also been referred to as ELF, but to avoid confusion, project should be added when referring to the project.
ELF service: Spatial data service operating on ELF data.
ELF specification: ELF data specification or ELF product specification.
ELF-affiliated platform: Third-party cloud GIS platform that hosts ELF applications and provides ELF data and ELF services, including cached, cascaded and/or data derived from ELF data.
Geo-tool: Software that processes geospatial data and analyses or transforms it
Reference data: Geospatial data, which gives an unambiguous location for a user’s information by providing a geographic context which enables merging of data from various sources.