[GSDI Technical] Provisional Work Items for 2007 GSDI Technical Working Group

[Rob Atkinson]

I'd like to volunteer some input to the architectural design, as someone 
lucky enough to have had the opportunity to work on a number of 
international and national SDI implementations requirements analyses.

The consensus from these varied communities is that there are a number 
of extensions and alignments with external practices required to apply 
the OGC "computational architecture" to SDI:

    * Feature Type Catalog - standardised implementation profile for
      registries (The MarineXML Consortium (http://marinexml.net) is to
      explore this in an ebRIM environment)
    * Service profiles  (see
      https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/twiki/bin/view/AppSchemas/ServiceProfiles
      )
    * Metadata profiles - scalability and interoperability mechanisms
      _between_ profiles.
    * Data Modelling methodologies for data standards
      (https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/twiki/bin/view/AppSchemas/ - aligned
      with OGC SensorWeb and INSPIRE, and previous US FGDC
    * Separation of query models from response models when deploying WFS
      ( allows alignment of coverage, observation and feature views via
      different service interfaces)
    * Binding of query models to domain vocabularies (to allow
      meaningful queries to be formulated)
    * SDIs as interoperable components of broader and narrower scoped
      SDIs (See
      http://www.ungiwg.org/docs/unsdi/UNSDI%20Draft%20Discussion%20Paper%2025-10-'06.pdf
      )

There may be more, and there is a set of overarching principles about 
governance of components within SDIs that must also be in place. The 
issues above have all proved to be critical, and fairly readily soluble 
at a technical level, but require governance and agreement about 
standardisation to achive GSDI vision, as well as efficient local SDI 
deployment.

All three work items have dependencies on the "how do we do it" issues 
raised here, so I'm not sugesting a new point, but rather a refinement 
of approach. 

I am willing to help in future with the GSDI cookbook where the 
architecture starts to address these "scalability of interoperability" 
concerns.

Regards
Rob Atkinson
Social Change Online

Doug Nebert wrote:
> I'd like to propose the following tasks for contribution by the GSDI
> members this year, as achieved through the GSDI Technical WG. Please
> feel free to comment, volunteer, and propose additional items.
>
> 2007 Tasks for Technical WG:
>
> 1. Work with the Open Geospatial Consortium on the common definition of
> an "SDI 1.0" suite of standards and an approach for future designations.
> Status: The OGC Architecture Board is beginning discussions of the
> concept and rationale behind an OGC perspective on an SDI suite of
> standards and will develop a position soon. GSDI members will be invited
> to comment and contribute their SDI implementation perspectives. The TWG
> should recommend a GSDI position relative to this branding.
>
> 2. Develop a global registry for all geospatial web services.
>
> Status: A prototype Web Services Registry of all known geospatial web
> services from numerous catalogs is being prototyped for the Group on
> Earth Observation (GEO) System of Systems (GEOSS) activity. Members of
> the GSDI Association (a recognized GEO Participating Organization) is
> welcome to support this activity in support of earth observation and SDI
> interests. An operational capability is expected by May 2007.
>
> 3. Revise the GSDI Cookbook to reflect current practices and standards
>
> Status: No progress yet, need to solicit input and editors for updates
> of the various chapters for a Version 3.0 release, if there is
> sufficient interest.
>
>