February 6, 2006 FGDC Coordination Meeting Summary

Agenda

Host: 
Michael Sherman, NCPC and Shane Dettman, NCPC

Attendees:
Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC
Leslie Armstrong, FGDC
Alison Dishman, FGDC
Bonnie Gallahan, FGDC
Al Stevens, FGDC
Milo Robinson, FGDC
Billy Tolar, FGDC
Brett Abrams, NARA
Bob Harding, GSA
Chuck Croner, DHHS
Anne O’Connor, Census
Tricia Gibbons, LEAD Alliance
Bill Burgess, NSGIC
Shirley Hall, USDA/FSA
Carolyn Austin Diggs, Treasury
David LaBranche, DoD DISDI
Doug Vandegraft, DOI/FWS
Christine Clarke, USDA/NRCS
Nancy Blyler, USACE
Carol Brandt, USDOT
Donald Draper Campbell, FCC
Kitty Hancock, Virginia Tech - UCGIS
Colleen Cahill, LOC

On the phone:
Barb White, FWS
Dennis Goreham, Utah
Kathy Covert, FGDC
Tony Lavoi, NOAA
And a couple others

Action 1:  FGDC Subcommittee and Working Group chairs should contact Alison Dishman (adishman@fgdc.gov) to schedule their Coordination Group meeting update.


Action 2:  Please contact Brenda Smith (Smith.Brenda@epamail.epa.gov), Doug Nebert (ddnebert@fgdc.gov) or Ivan DeLoatch (ideloatch@fgdc.gov)  if you would like to participate on a Geospatial Profile pilot project as discussed at the January 30 FGDC Steering Committee meeting.  For more information on the Geospatial Profile activity please view their Steering Committee presentation available here.


Action 3:  Milo Robinson and Tricia Gibbons will find roles and responsibilities that were recommended by the Governance Action Team during the Future Directions activity.


Action 4:  FGDC staff will provide a briefing at the next Coordination Group meeting with roles and responsibilities for the FACA and intergovernmental body, their decision paths and how the two groups will relate to each other. 


Action 5:  Contact Brett Abrams (Brett.Abrams@nara.gov) if you have historically significant GIS data in your agency.  Tell him the individuals responsible for saving that data.


Action 6:  If you want to join the Historical Data Working Group Wiki Site please contact Brett Abrams (Brett.Abrams@nara.gov).


Action 7:  Please contact Brett if your agency’s archival data is ready to be stored by NARA. 


Action 8:  By February 14, please provide Ivan with name of your agency’s policy level representative to serve on the executive steering group that will develop an investment strategy for Imagery for the Nation.


Action 9:  Please send Leslie Armstrong (larmstrong@fgdc.gov) status graphics or url links to your website to be printed in this year’s annual report – including success stories of how your work is benefiting your partners whether federal or not, percentages, or how you are benefiting from what we are doing to coordinate data for your agency.


Action 10:  Please send Alison (adishman@fgdc.gov) the current information on your Steering Committee reps to be updated on the website.


Action Items From Last Meeting – Leslie Armstrong, FGDC


The next FGDC Steering Committee meeting will be on April 17 at the American Institute of Architects Boardroom.

The next Coordination Group meeting will be on March 7.

Michael Sherman, was thanked for offering the National Capital Planning Commission’s boardroom as the regular site of the FGDC Coordination Group meetings.

We will be having two presentations from Subcommittees and Working Groups per Coordination Group meeting.  We still need presentations for the April meeting. 

Action 1:  FGDC Subcommittee and Working Group chairs should contact Alison Dishman (adishman@fgdc.gov) to schedule their Coordination Group meeting update.

Action 2:  Please contact Brenda Smith (Smith.Brenda@epamail.epa.gov), Doug Nebert (ddnebert@fgdc.gov) or Ivan DeLoatch (ideloatch@fgdc.gov)  if you would like to participate on a Geospatial Profile pilot project as discussed at the January 30 FGDC Steering Committee meeting.  For more information on the Geospatial Profile activity please view their Steering Committee presentation available here.

Ivan DeLoatch has an action from the Steering Committee meeting to assemble an Executive Steering Group for the Imagery for the Nation proposal.

Governance – Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC

[ Paper ] [ Presentation ]

The January 30 FGDC Steering Committee went well.  We will need your assistance implementing the actions.  This is an exciting time for the FGDC – we are reinvigorating our charges and moving forward on the Future Directions decisions.  There will be governance and Imagery for the Nation issues.  There is significant interest from OMB in our activities and we have opportunities to ensure they are informed so they can make decisions about much of the work we are doing.

During the Steering Committee meeting, Scott Cameron (DOI) stated that he would like to use the GOS Intergovernmental Board of Directors model to include our partners in the FGDC process.  DOI is pursuing this action to establish an intergovernmental board.  In the meantime, a subcommittee will be established under the FGDC to focus on intergovernmental coordination as an interim measure.  The members will establish the rules for the committee.

OMB is working to involve the community by exploring an executive order to create a Federal Advisory Committee (FACA) for the FGDC – they don’t want to revise Circular A-16.

The budget rollout was yesterday – GOS is included in the USGS budget for FY 07 as an operational activity.

We will continue to operate as usual until the FACA issue is decided.  OMB continues to explore the executive order as soon as possible but an interim step will be to establish an intergovernmental subcommittee.  The key concern in establishing a FACA are the administrative requirements to manage its activities.  When Health IT was established as a FACA the Secretary of Health and Human Services ensured the Department would manage it as needed. 

Comment:  Typically a FACA is not an open forum – a specific agenda is set.  Anything to be discussed needs to be planned through a specific process and decisions are made on the agenda.  This is not a quick and easy process.

Comment: We need to decide how we will choose the members of the FACA.  To have a balanced table there will need be those not in favor of GIS on the committee -- maybe privacy advocates. 

Q:  A FACA is one thing and a board of directors is something else.  Usually a FACA doesn’t also have a board of directors.

A:  The intergovernmental board is just an interim step, although we could possibly have both – there are a couple things in play, the plan isn’t necessarily to combine the two.

The NGCC approach recommended by the Future Directions group would require legislative action and would have taken time.  Lynn Scarlett felt the FGDC should be constituted of the broadest group possible – hence the FACA. 

Q: How would the FACA change the Coordination Group and Steering Committee makeup?  There needs to be some sort of conversation with federal agencies on their programs.  The Steering Committee may have more restrictive participation when policy decisions are being made.

Comment: Even after the FACA is established, the intergovernmental subcommittee would still be valuable – sometimes the intergovernmental meeting can be held before the FACA so the members are all on the same page when addressing the external government concerns.

Caution – we need to be really clear about the core purposes and responsibilities of each group.  We don’t want to make things more complicated and get less done.  We need to have someone map this out.  The governance team could provide information for whoever is looking at this.

Q: Have we identified who the potential members might be for the intergovernmental subcommittee?
A: We have 80% of them. 

Action 3:  Milo Robinson and Tricia Gibbons will find roles and responsibilities that were recommended by the Governance Action Team during the Future Directions activity.

Action 4:  FGDC staff will provide a briefing at the next Coordination Group meeting with roles and responsibilities for the FACA and intergovernmental body, their decision paths and how the two groups will relate to each other. 

Historical Data Working Group Update - Brett Abrams, NARA

[ Presentation ]

The Historical Data Working Group is expanding membership beyond Feds -- including universities, non-profits, etc.

The working group has a shared Wiki Site with a library linking to papers related to preserving geospatial data.

Action 5:  Contact Brett Abrams (Brett.Abrams@nara.gov) if you have historically significant GIS data in your agency.  Tell him the individuals responsible for saving that data.

Q:  What are your goals for the Historical Data Working Group this year?
A:  To develop a wiki site and to go to ESRI and to present and gain a members.  We may also put an article in Arc News regarding the session – maybe building a business case regarding the advantages of saving the data.

The group’s FY07 goals may focus on Geography Markup Language – if the standards group moves to creating something with schemas built in then that might work, but that would take a united community to say we are interested in seeing that activity go forward.  Brett is also working with GOS to establish a link to historical data – a pointer to standards and white papers. 

Comment:  This is something that is very valuable to pursue

Action 6
:  If you want to join the Historical Data Working Group Wiki Site please contact Brett Abrams (Brett.Abrams@nara.gov).

Comment:  DOE is looking to set up a working group to look at the issue of archiving their geospatial legacy data.  Are other agencies looking at doing this on a formal basis?  This is something we should get into. 

Q:  Are you reaching out to NGA about archiving classified geospatial data?
A:  Yes, we are reaching out to NGA but have not focused on classified data because that is a separate storage system.

Action 7:  Please contact Brett if your agency’s archival data is ready to be stored by NARA. 

Although Brett is pushing NARA to realize that shapefiles are the best format we have – when you send your data to Brett you can dictate the format you want to be stored. You can work through your agency’s records office.

Comment:  SDTS is a very old standard, very mature, going into international community through ISO.  It has devices to document spatial data – there are 9 types of points.  We should look at it, it has a view towards archival activities and you have the strength of international community behind it.  It allows the storage of data independent of systems and media.

Brett:  The problem with SDTS is that not all agencies use it.

Comment:  FCC has millions of records with a very small geospatial component and its tables that would need to be recreated.  So it’s easy to store as a table than to put it in a shapefile.

Colleen Cahill, LOC is also working to put together a national geospatial data archive.

Imagery for the Nation – Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC


Action 8:  By February 14, please provide Ivan with name of your agency’s policy level representative to serve on the executive steering group that will develop an investment strategy for Imagery for the Nation.

Ivan is developing a draft letter for Lynn’s signature.

A Geospatial Line of business was included in the president’s budget yesterday, it reads as follows:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/pdf/spec.pdf  (Page 153)

Geospatial.—to identify opportunities for optimizing and consolidating  Federal geospatial-related investments to reduce the cost of Government and improve services to citizens through business performance  improvements. The LoB taskforce will analyze cost benefits, alternatives and risks, define roles and responsibilities, expected outcomes, performance measures, milestones, and timelines. The Federal Geographic Data Committee will continue to develop the National Spatial Data Infrastructure and full implementation will require Federal agencies to play a critical role; therefore, the establishment of the Geospatial LoB will ensure sustainable business model for Federal partners to establish a sustainable business model for Federal partners to collaborate on geospatial-related activities and investments.

The memorandum from OMB asking for high-level participation might play into the LoB.

FGDC will continue to develop the NSDI – the establishment of the geospatial line of business will ensure a way to collaborate.

Comment:  This seems to be motivated as a way to cut out the waste that Karen Evans has been mentioning.  Do they have a feel for an endgame?  There is probably only a few million dollars of duplication; it’s a smaller problem than they think it is.

OMB thinks that even if there are duplications those dollars need to be redirected to maximize investments, and not cut.  This needs to be laid out in a business case.  We can also showcase where there are gaps.  Imagery for the Nation can serve as a model for the business case.

Q:  How do you envision developing this?  Do we wait for the guidance?
A:  Yes, we will wait for guidance – and develop a high level task force (Assistant Secretary level).  So far FGDC is mentioned as the lead, not a specific agency.

Update on the Annual Report – Leslie Armstrong and Kathy Covert, FGDC


Kathy and Leslie had a telecom with Jason Freihage and Stacy Boyd from OMB.  All of the annual reports are in.  The printing contract will be awarded by the end of this week, and then there will be a two to three month production time. 

Jason Freihage said this is a good start – he likes the new approach.  Next year’s report needs to be put together by the end of September, so we will start the cycle earlier this year for your 06 materials.

Jason wants to see reports that your managers find useful as well.  Did you find the survey useful?  If not – what info could we include in 06 that would be useful to your managers?

Jason stressed that he wanted status graphics of mapping or geospatial products the agencies were producing.  For example what was new that you produced in the last year?  You should send in graphics of what you want to showcase for your agency – A-16 agencies should have some kind of status graphics for what you produced this year.

Action 9:  Please send Leslie Armstrong (larmstrong@fgdc.gov) status graphics or url links to your website to be printed in this year’s annual report – including success stories of how your work is benefiting your partners whether federal or not, percentages, or how you are benefiting from what we are doing to coordinate data for your agency.

Kathy:  Jason was interested in overall percentages – he wants to know context for numbers we are reporting.  For example – if we want coverage of the US, how much do we have covered?  Where status graphic isn’t possible a narrative would be good – for example, 60% coverage of X.  Agencies might want to give a write up on how they are benefiting from coordinated data production. 

Mario Lopez-Gomez will go through the reports and will create additional spreadsheets.  He has worked with several agencies to correct numbers we have gotten from GOS. 

We want to turn over materials to contractor next week.  We will then show draft to the Coordination Group and then the annual report would go to production.

Q:  Are the future directions going to be reported out?
A:  Yes, in the executive summary.

We will have a representation of our non-Fed partners in the report.

DOI’s Geospatial Modernization Blueprint – Leslie Armstrong, FGDC

[ Presentation ]

DOI is looking at the core set of geospatial data used across multiple programs in order to simplify access to geospatial services and data in support of business decision-making.

Action 10
:  Please send Alison (adishman@fgdc.gov) the current information on your Steering Committee reps to be updated on the website.