OR/14/073 Development tools
| Bell, P, Shelley, W, Smith, R S, and Tomas, R. 2014. Reusable tools for smartphone apps: innovative activities in the European geological sector. British Geological Survey, OR/14/073. |
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One of the aims of this survey was to uncover which tools are being used to develop apps, what expertise in using these tools existed, how reusable these tools are (both technically and from an IPR perspective), what efforts are being made to promote potential reuse and how successful such reuse has been. A wide range of tools were uncovered and these are listed in Appendix 3: Tools inventory used in the creation of European geological survey apps.
Many of these tools are code libraries for presenting interactive maps (Esri SDK, Route-Me, Leaflet, Google maps API, OpenLayers). Although cross-platform development frameworks were expected to be widely used across European geological surveys, no such tools were identified by the survey. A possible task resulting from this survey would be for geological surveys to collaboratively review such frameworks. Such a review should attempt to understand their usefulness for the sector and to estimate how successfully they might integrate with the current tools identified as being in use to underpin existing app developments and maintenance.
Concerning the reuse of the identified tools, from a licencing perspective, many of these tools are open source or free to use (Figure 14). There was also a strong consensus by those who have used the tools that they were straightforward for developers to use with no particular barriers to their reuse. This gives us a sense that the European geological surveys have identified a set of readily available tools that can be re-used by other developers in other organisations (both geology and non-geology related). The geosciences sector also has the expertise within its community to help facilitate that reuse. It is also clear from the survey, however, that little effort has been made in promoting the availability of these tools and their potential reuse (Figure 15). Such activities would be another potential avenue to explore based on this study.
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