DSSC delivery plan: seeking to consolidate common concepts in data spaces

October 30, 2023

DESCRIPCIÓN

In compliance with its principles of transparency and with the objective of supporting the deployment of data spaces, the DSCC (Data Spaces Support Center) in cooperation with its network of stakeholders is carrying out an ambitious plan to publish assets of different nature, planned to be delivered in different deadlines on its website. 

The Starter Kit is the first of the published assets. It is a short guidance document for creating a data space that provides a multi-faceted view of business, legal, governance, technical aspects and points out the DSSC assets available to address them, in other words, it provides an entry point for individuals and organizations wishing to create or participate in a data space.

Secondly, the DSSC glossary of data space related terms has been published to facilitate the exchange of information and joint development between the different initiatives and people involved in the DSSC. It is ultimately a limited set of data space related terms, where each term has a criterion to determine whether or not something is an instance/example of the concept to which the term refers.

Third, the conceptual model is a consistent, coherent and complete description of the concepts and their relationships that can be used to unambiguously explain what the data spaces and related initiatives consist of. This conceptual model provides a well-defined set of concepts, as well as the terms to refer to them. By relying on the conceptual model, the authors of the blueprint for data spaces and the community of practice at large can clearly articulate the issues related to data spaces.

The fourth of the published articles is the blueprint. This is a consistent, coherent and comprehensive set of guidelines to support the implementation, deployment and maintenance of data spaces. Through the Digital Europe Program, the European Commission invests in European data spaces in strategic sectors and economic areas. This plan focuses on emerging data spaces and supports their development at different stages of their life cycle and can benefit from a growing community of experts developing innovative data exchange technologies, standards, legal and governance frameworks and business models.

Fifth, there are the building blocks. This is the organized inventory of data space building blocks recommended by the DSSC. To divide data spaces into manageable parts, the DSSC adopted the concept of building blocks: a basic unit or component that can be implemented and combined with other building blocks to achieve the functionality of a data space.

Finally, the Standards and Technology Collection is a collection of candidate (de facto and de jure) standards, specifications and open source reference implementations available for data space deployment. It consists of a complete listing of all candidate standards and technologies that will be referenced in the Building Blocks Specifications for implementation.

They are expected to be released before the end of the year: data space taxonomy, which is a classification scheme used to describe, analyze and organize data space initiatives according to a defined set of characteristics; on the other hand the maturity model, which consists of a set of indicators and a self-assessment tool that allow data space initiatives to understand their stage of development and their capabilities in absolute terms and in relation to their peers; and finally the data space radar, which is a web tool that provides an overview of data space initiatives, their sectors, locations and approximate lifecycle phases.

BAIDATA, as a peninsular node of IDSA, maintains a direct cooperative relationship with the DSSC. This institution helps us to connect with European data spaces, transmitting leading initiatives developed in Europe to Spain and Portugal and, at the same time, transmitting BAIDATA's progress and implementations to the rest of European nodes and stakeholders.