Action 1: Designated Agency Representatives – by May 13, please email Alison (adishman@fgdc.gov) your FGDC Steering Committee member’s electronic ballot regarding the Hydrographic Surveys and Nautical Charts Standard.
Action 2: Please contact David Painter (dpainter@fgdc.gov) if you would like to serve as a reviewer of the 2005 CAP proposals. David needs 12 more reviewers.
Action 3: Alison will get in touch with the Soils Subcommittee to see if they would like to continue.
Action 4: Ed Wells will present at an upcoming Coordination Group meeting to clarify the street addressing standards work – including whether a working group needs to be created to deal with this issue.
Action 5: Alison will contact SIMNRE and see if they would like merge with Sustainable Forest or if they would like to retire.
Action 6: Leslie will send the workplan format to the Coordination Group listserve – this workplan format should be adopted by the subcommittees and working groups. We will discuss the workplan format at the June 7 Coordination Group meeting. Please send Leslie (larmstrong@fgdc.gov) any suggestions on additions to the workplan regarding milestones, budget, identification of unmet resources, travel.
Action 7: The Governance Team Draft Report is available for review at http://www.fgdc.gov/FutureDirections/. Please return comments to John Mahoney at jmahoney@usgs.gov.
Action 8: Jeremy will share his list of partners with GOS, so that the GOS staff can encourage the partners to register their data with GOS.
Action 9: If you would like to participate on the new Homeland Security Working Group activity on data exchange agreements, please contact Bill Burgess (william.burgess@comcast.net).
Action 10: Those FGDC subcommittees and working groups will submit updated charters and 06 workplans by August 1. Those that do not will be retired. Those approved for retirement now include Tribal and Base Carto. Renewed charters for Wetlands and Transportation and creation of a new Geospatial Enterprise Architecture working group will be submitted soon. Leslie and Alison with work with others such as soils, earth cover Geographic Names, NDEP and NDOP to finalize their proposals to retire or renew.
Hosts: Brett Abrams, NARA and Ken Thibodeau, NARA
Leslie Armstrong, FGDC
Alison Dishman, FGDC
Nancy Blyler, USACE
Sam Bacharach, OGC
Richard Ullman, NASA
Pat Cummens, ESRI
Randy Turner, OSD-ATL DISDI
Tricia Gibbons, LEAD Alliance
Ann Frazier, NRC
Alan Stevens, FGDC
Fred Malkus, Census
David Painter, FGDC
Carol Brandt, USDOT
Doug Vandegraft, FWS
Betsy Kanalley, USFS
Shane Dettman, NCPC
John Mahoney, USGS
Donald Draper Cambell, FCC
Ed Wells, URISA
Arian Ravanbakhsh, NARA
Zsolt Nagy, NSGIC
Bill Burgess, NSGIC
Dennis Goreham, WGGIC/NSGIC
Alan Voss, TVA
Milo Robinson, FGDC
Myra Bambacus, NASA<
Jeremy Bartley, Kansas Geological Survey
On the phone:
Barb White, FWS
Betty O'Connor, GSA
Bruce Finch, Aerial Photography Field Office, Salt Lake City
Louise Matthews, Aerial Photography Field Office, Salt Lake City
Robert Chen, CIESIN
Robert Downs, CIESIN
NARA Initiatives on Geospatial Data Records – Ken Thibodeau, NARA
Ken Thibodeau, Director of the Electronic Records Archives Program and the National Archives and Records Adminstration’s (NARA’s) representative to the FGDC Steering Committee, welcomed the group. NARA provides guidance to all agencies in managing their federal records, and preserves records with enduring value in the National Archives through lifecycle management. Much of the spatial data received by federal agencies qualifies as a Federal Record and should be kept as evidence of the agency’s activity. 92% or more of Federal records can be destroyed once the agency determines it is no longer needed. NARA only keeps about 2% of Federal records - including some cartographic records related to military campaigns and Census mapping, and some digital spatial data records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Electronic and Special Media Services Division is responsible for getting the data into NARA and verifying the records (ensuring that the records to conform to specifications) before preserving and storing them. This division will provide access to the data upon request.
The first electronic records came to NARA in the 1970s and were originally stored on magnetic tape, although today the data is tarred and put on DLTs. About 30% of electronic record demand is from the federal government itself.
Preserving electronics records is challenging due to the diversity, complexity, open-ended growth, obsolescence, continuing change and durability of those records. For example - by law when a President leaves office all the records must go to NARA. Just dealing with the email messages alone can cause a challenge – there is simply too much data.
The Electronics Records Archives Program will preserve and provide access to any kind of electronic record free from dependency on any specific hardware or software. Partnerships with agencies that manage research (such as DARPA, NSF, and NIST) help NARA manage this challenge. DARPA helped develop a system independent of specific hardware -- NARA has received $100 million in funding to develop this system.
Mark Conrad demonstrated to the group the Vietnam War Herbicides Collection, which shows how many gallons of the Agent Orange herbicides were dropped on the missions each month for each province during the Vietnam War.
Q: What’s the format of the records that you received and what work was entailed to put them in the maps we were shown of Vietnam?
A: NARA received structured data (logical tables) and used axia map to load the layers.
Updates – Leslie Armstrong, FGDC
Geodata.gov 2 Portal update – the official roll out of Geodata.gov 2 Portal will occur in Chicago on June 2. There will also be a demonstration at the June 23 FGDC Steering Committee meeting. During the last week of May, Scott Cameron may call a GOS Federal Partners meeting.
Suggestion: The Coordination Group members would like to see a demo of the Geodata.gov 2 Portal at the June 7 Coordination Group meeting so they will be better able to brief their Steering Committee members.
There was an Enterprise Architecture (EA) meeting at USGS on May 2 – DHS and DISDI gave overviews of their architectures. The group will be developing an EA Geospatial Profile and will develop a FGDC working group charter. . The next meeting is May 11 at EPA. For more information or to attend please contact Doug Nebert (dnebert@fgdc.gov).
There will be a Geospatial Grants Workshop on June 13 (location and agenda will be provided when it becomes available)
Action 1: Designated Agency Representatives – by May 13, please email Alison (adishman@fgdc.gov) your FGDC Steering Committee member’s electronic ballot regarding the Hydrographic Surveys and Nautical Charts Standard.
Action 2: Please contact David Painter (dpainter@fgdc.gov) if you would like to serve as a reviewer of the 2005 CAP proposals. David needs 12 more reviewers.
Subcommittees and Working Groups – Leslie Armstrong, FGDC
Leslie Armstrong has been reviewing the status of the subcommittees to determine which should be retired and which should continue. If your subcommittee is active, please have your charter updated by August 1. You should also do an annual workplan for your agency as a lead on a data theme or for your subcommittee or working group.
Action: Subcommittee and Work Group Chairs should submit their updated charter and workplan to Leslie Armstrong (larmstrong@fgdc.gov) by August 1.
Discussion:
FGDC Subcommittees:
- The Base Carto Subcommittee has not been active and will be retired. There were no objections to this action. Al Voss suggested continuing to address the Base Carto issues through the Standards Working Group.
- Soils Subcommittee would like to be revisited due to the high interest in the soils data exchange standard.
Action 3: Alison will get in touch with the Soils Subcommittee to see if they would like to continue.
New or Recommended Groups –
- Earth Cover – USGS, Nick VanDriel has the action to discuss with MRLC
- NAIP – National Aerial Imagery Program nominated but should be part of NDOP
- NDEP (Elevation, terrestrial) – USGS (maybe NDOP and NDEP could be folded into each other since the production flow feeds into each other)
- NDOP (Digital Ortho Imagery) – USGS
- Street Addressing – URISA (Standards WG accepted proposal from URISA to create standards for street addresses (data processing standard) – hope to have a draft ready by the end of the summer and turn over to FGDC within a year. If you would like to participate please contact Ed Wells). Need to mindful of where this fits in. Will this be an ad hoc committee or a standing Subcommittee. If there is ongoing effort it could be under the Census Bureau – it will be begun as an ad hoc group with a charter and workplan.
- Geographic Names – USGS
- Transportation SC will need to be reconstituted – 90% of membership has retired or moved on. You will be receiving an email in the next month or so inviting you or someone in your organization to participate on the Transportation SC.
- Wetlands is submitting a new charter.
Action 4: Ed Wells will present at an upcoming Coordination Group meeting to clarify the street addressing issue – including whether a group needs to be created to deal with this issue.
FGDC Working Groups:
- SIMNRE – Charter in need of review and update. Merger with the Sustainable Forest Working Group was discussed in 2002 but not adopted.
- The Tribal Working Group is not active and will be retired.
Action 5: Alison will contact SIMNRE and see if they would like merge with Sustainable Forest or if they would like to retire.
New or recommended Working Groups:
- Commercial Remote Sensing- USGS, interagency working group for the last 2 years managed under Geography discipline
- Geospatial Enterprise Architecture – USGS, charter will be submitted by Doug Nebert
- Federal Geospatial Grants and Investments – related to the activities proposed for a special organizational component under the new governance model.
Q: Would the results from the NGPO Products and Publications Study Team shed some light on what we should do with these subcommittees and working groups?
A: No, there was not a recommendation that needs to be included here.
Action 6: Leslie will send the workplan format to the Coordination Group listserve – this workplan format should be adopted by the subcommittees and working groups. We will discuss the workplan format at the June 7 Coordination Group meeting. Please send Leslie (larmstrong@fgdc.gov) any suggestions on additions to the workplan regarding milestones, budget, identification of unmet resources, or travel.
Future Directions – Milo Robinson, FGDC
The Second Future Directions Quarterly Report is complete and will be transmitted to the Steering Committee.
Action 7: The Governance Team Draft Report is available for review at http://www.fgdc.gov/FutureDirections/. Please return comments to John Mahoney at jmahoney@usgs.gov.
Action Team Updates:
- The Governance Team Draft Report is available for review at http://www.fgdc.gov/FutureDirections/
- The Non-Geospatial Organization Action Plan was submitted to the Coordination Group on April 8 for review and acceptance. The Coordination Group reviewed and accepted the plan.
- Tribal Engagement just had a course in Arizona.
- The State Councils Plan is complete and he has a presentation to the National Governor’s Association.
- Business Case team is summarizing their findings and developing a strategy.
- Communications Team is developing a team to implement their plan and is trying to engage the NSDI (formerly USGS State) Liaisons.
- Training and Education is developing a more robust train the trainer workshop.
- Address Standard was approved by the standards working group.
- Publishing Metadata’s metadata profile has a 70% return rate.
- Implementing standards/ web protocols – proposed WMS for External Standard endorsement.
- Urban Areas – is holding an experts meeting today to develop a handbook.
NATCARB Carbon Cyberinfrastructure (CO2 Portal) – Jeremy Bartley, Kansas Geological Survey
The NATional CARBon Sequestration Database and Geographic Information System (NATCARB) provides national coverage across the Regional CO2 Partnerships (http://www.natcarb.org) to identify potential carbon sinks and undertake emissions analysis of the power plants in the region. It is formed through seven partnerships comprise most of the States in the US -- except New England. This is a long-term project that is funded until 2008.
The CO2 Portal helps combine disparate data sources -- coordinating and integrating the data into one view. It characterizes major CO2 Sources (mostly power plants) and potential sequestration sites (petroleum, coal, aquifers, terrestrial).
The NatCarb Browser has expanded tools, national coverage, and web based access. It’s a distributed national database with data requests driven by XML. The targeted geoportal builds on Geography Network and Geospatial One-Stop. There are 120 layers of data on their website. Since it is distributed, users don’t have to build or store the data. The user is able to set up bookmarks – so they can save the state and layers of interest.
Q: How are you using The National Map (TNM)? Also all of the carbon source data and sink data are pretty new – is that all being registered with Geospatial One-Stop?
A: The source data is from the EPA Powerplant Databases. The data is corrected by the partners and then given back to the EPA, who then updates it and puts it back out through GOS. They are also working with TNM – pulling their base layers from TNM map service.
Q: FCC has coordinates for the towers at the Powerplants that can be provided to Jeremy.
A: That would be great. Jeremy will contact Don Campbell for more information.
Q: Can you pass a bookmark to another user?
A: It will redo the request for the new user – so the bookmark goes back through the portal and then the portal issues a request.
Q: Does NASA fit into this with their carbon sequestration work?
A: Yes, NASA has done a lot on the agricultural side and they will work with the groups that are doing this.
Q: Have you built redundancy into the system?
A: Partners can do this – only one partnership has done this.
Q: The partnerships -- are they State or academic?
A: 2 are State of Utah, 1 is University of ND, 1 is MIT -- they run the gamut. It’s up to the partnerships to register to GOS.
Action 8: Jeremy will share his list of partners with GOS, so that the GOS staff can encourage the partners to register their data with GOS.
MAPDEX: A Global Index of Distributed Web Map Services – Jeremy Bartley, Kansas Geological Survey
MAPDEX (www.mapdex.org) is an index of dynamic map services (almost 1500 servers have been indexed so far). Many groups have built Clearinghouses – and MAPDEX searches all of these sources. MAPDEX uses Google to narrow down the list of map servers and stores that information in their database. Unfortunately, the 58% of mapservices that don’t declare their projection are not able to be used with other data. MAPDEX doesn’t provide metadata – it just shows server name and the date indexed and you can map the data.
Q: Can you search by content and not name?
A: No – there is no content search because Mapdex is not able to store that data. However there is a database of all of the layer names. Jeremy is working with ESRI to have this as a possible search with the GOS 2 Portal. He is also working with USGS TNM folks on a WMS to find data that isn’t in TNM.
Future Directions Governance Team Report and Model – Alan Voss, TVA & Dennis Goreham, State of Utah
The Future Directions Governance Group is looking at options to move forward with a new governance structure for the NSDI.
Governance action team has heard:
- Need to create incentives for data sharing and developing partnerships
- Ensure all levels of government, academia and private sector are involved
- Increase awareness and education effort
- Develop performance measures including additional emphasis on ROI
- Continue development of standards
- Strategy needed for long term financing of the NSDI
Team Consensus:
- Establish a national coordinating body
- Ensure representation of all sectors – continue federal role of the FGDC, continue the state role through NSGIC, private sector involvement is critical
- Down to the ground coordination among federal agencies is needed
- Decision-support activities must be driven by local issues and needs
3 Key Recommendations:
- Enhance the role and functions of FGDC
- Endorse and implement the “Fifty States Initiative”
- Set up the National Geospatial Coordination Council (NGCC)
The governance team determined the need to better engage the Steering Committee (quarterly meetings); create an updated strategic plan for the NSDI; accelerate standards development; and revisit charters for the Steering Committee, Coordination Group, Subcommittees and Working Groups.
NGCC will develop a national geospatial policy. The council membership will have broad representation from all sectors (approximately 20 members) with staggered 3-year terms that are nominated through sponsoring organizations. The chair would be the NGCC Director (Presidential appointment). The council will meet quarterly and establish a strategic plan and annual work plans and administer an annual grant program.
There will be phases of implementation. The Governance Team Draft Report is available for review at http://www.fgdc.gov/FutureDirections/. Please return comments to John Mahoney at jmahoney@usgs.gov.
Governance Discussion Led By Tricia:
Al Voss – People said that FGDC lacks clout and authority -- and authority comes from having control of the money. OMB said that they would like it if FGDC used the already existing economic analysis capability to look at the economic viability of geospatial proposals. The Geospatial Investment Analysis Group (GIAT) would give credible ROI information on building investments in geospatial data. This would give FGDC/NGCC credibility and authority. It would focus on data acquisition programs.
Comment: We need an investment review team for every theme – transportation needs the same type of investment group. Then each theme can go to their community.
Comment: Could look at collecting more data elements (not necessarily related to your business) to make the data more usable for the general community. This statement should be added to the governance team’s report.
Comment: Investment analysis would encourage people to think of geospatial data as a capital asset that must be maintained or it will depreciate.
This is a valuable idea for the governance team to move forward on. We can have a workshop on the investment analysis after the June 23 Steering Committee meeting.
Comment: Is the not for profit to be a C3 or a C6? As a C3 they have to reimburse the federal government – it might be better for us. C3 focuses on education, C6 focuses on trade. It’s much simpler to become a C6 than a C3.
Q: Is there a need for the FGDC after the NGCC is implemented?
A: There would need to be ongoing staff support.
Q: Would the NGCC replace the Steering Committee?
Caution: There might a reason to keep the FGDC because we might lose some functions as the NGCC.
Comment: Need to think about where the NGCC resides in the federal government – FGDC in USGS in DOI is not the right place. We should keep FGDC for federal coordination – FGDC needs to remain so the independent agencies can participate.
FGDC needs to be pulled out of the depths and put higher up in DOI or OMB. The report should look at elevating the FGDC.
Geospatial stuff in all federal agencies is buried too low – all agencies need a Geospatial Management Office at a higher level so each agency with theme lead responsibility will have the power to affect change in their own agency.
Comment: Interacting more with the Federal CIO Council and NASCIO – The Federal CIO Council has a non-voting member on NASCIO. This can be leveraged when you try to link FGDC into these organizations.
Comment: We need to reference the USGEO activities in this report – the overarching implementations and how we should interact with that. And the IWGEO for which Ivan is a representative.
Comment: Ivan should present on the GEO activities at a Coordination Group meeting.
New Homeland Security WG Activity on Agreements – Bill Burgess, NSGIC
The Homeland Security Working Group has formed a team to develop a single data sharing agreement template to facilitate sharing of geospatial data by all levels of government. The team will develop recommendations and procedures to enhance the sharing of geospatial data wherever and whenever there is a need. The team will gather information from April – December 2005 and hopes to have a final draft of their guidelines drafted by April 2006.
Action 9: If you would like to participate on the new Homeland Security Working Group activity on agreements, please contact Bill Burgess (william.burgess@comcast.net).
Next Coordination Group meeting:
June 7, 2005
Hosted by: Michael Sherman, NCPC in Washington, D.C.