Summary of Actions
Action 1: Send suggestions for new CAP funding categories to Gita
Urban-Mathieux (burbanma@usgs.gov), or 703-649-5175 by May 30.
Action 2: Don Buhler will give a cadastral presentation for the June 5 Steering Committee meeting.
Action 3: Jon Sperling to give a HUD presentation to the Steering Committee in June or October. Status: October
Action 4: Anyone wanting to join the NGAC subcommittee, please contact Ivan DeLoatch at idloatch@usgs.gov
Action 5: During the next Coordination Group meeting, Wendy would like to lead a discussion to determine if the Life Cycle Management group is going in the right direction.
Action 6: The Interagency Trail Data Standard will be released for public review.
Welcome and Introductions – Ivan DeLoatch
Ivan welcomes everyone to the FGDC Coordination Group meeting and
thanks them for attending. Although Ivan would prefer to run the
meeting in person, WebEx does come in handy when needed.
Actions from the last Coordination Group meeting- Pat Phillips
Action 1: The Coordination Group unanimously voted to forward
the Framework Data Standard to the FGDC Steering Committee for
consideration of endorsement at the May 1 meeting.
Status: Endorsement passed. 19 votes for endorsement, 8 absent and 1 deferred.
Action 2: BLM (Bob Dahl) to provide comments in writing to Julie
Binder Maitra on the BLM Standards endorsement process.
Status: Content Data Standards do not have to be crossed-walked with existing Framework Content Standards. Proposed Content Data Standards can go through the FGDC endorsement process and not be inter-operable with approved Framework Content Data Standards.
Action 3: EPA, NOAA to forward grants and contract language to
Lew Stanford and the Grant and Contracts Work.
Status: Lew was successful in talking with NOAA, however, NOAA’s Coastal Zone Management typically uses cooperative agreements. Recipients of cooperative agreements do not necessarily compete in the same manner as grants work.
2009 NSDI Cooperative Agreement Program – Gita Urban-Mathiuex
Gita askes the Coordination Group for input for new funding categories for the 2009 CAP. The funding categories for 2008 were:
- Category 1: Metadata Trainer and Outreach Assistance
- Category 2: Best practices in Geospatial Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Category 3: Fifty States Initiative
- Category 4: Joint Canadian and United States Spatial Data Infrastructure
- Category 5: Building data stewardship for The National Map and the NSDI
- Category 6: FGDC-Endorsed Standards Implementation Assistance and Outreach (excluding Metadata Standards)
Action 1: Send suggestions for new CAP funding categories to
Gita Urban-Mathieux (burbanma@usgs.gov), or 703-649-5175 by May
30.
FGDC Steering Committee Follow-up - Ivan Deloatch
Ivan gave an overview on the May 1 FGDC Steering Committee meeting.
Many accomplishments were recognized and decisions were made during
this meeting. The Framework Data Standard was endorsed by the
Committee. The Framework Data Standard will be made available through
the www.fgdc.gov website as well as the
ASII Standards Store at http://webstore.ansi.org/ and the
INCITS store at http://www.incits.org/list_INCITS.htm
Another accomplishment was the decision made by the Steering Committee to endorse the concept of Imagery for the Nation (IFTN). Taking the action to endorse this is critical.
Announcement: Vicki Lukas, USGS Programs and Partners Manager, will serve as the IFTN Project Manager. Vicki can be reached at vlukas@usgs.gov or 703-648-4646.
The Executive Committee has divided IFTN into seven components. Four agencies have agreed to work on the plan so far.
IFTN components:
- Technical plan
- Funding Alignment
- Contracting Center(s) of excellence
- Hosting and archival capabilities
- Agreements with partners
- Guidance and direction
- Communication strategy
The Department of Agriculture has agreed to champion the work on the
technical plan, to be the organizer and conduit between NDOP and the
Geo Line of Business (LoB) Technical Architecture work group to develop
product cost and production schedules. Jim Cason, Chair of the FGDC
Steering Committee, has agreed to work with the Joint Business work
group to develop a strategy to align funding. Jim Cason will be
reaching out to the Steering Committee members for an agency to support
the third component, a strategy for developing Contracting Center(s) of
Excellence. The deliverable for this component is an action plan and
USGS seems to be a natural fit to be involved in it. The forth
component is hosting and archival capabilities. The Department of
Commerce had agreed to champion this with support from USGS. The fifth
component is developing partnerships. EPA has mentioned interest in
doing this with additional support from one of the work groups. The
deliverable would be partnership agreements as well as what the
potential role from the private sector is. The sixth component is
guidance and direction. OMB will work with USGS and the Joint Business
Case work group and focus on developing MOU’s and MOA’s and possibly
draft and executive order. The seventh component is a communication
strategy and there has been no champion for this yet, however, the FGDC
Secretariat and a work group may be a logical place.
During the Steering Committee meeting folks showed interest in participating in portions of the IFTN components but did not volunteer to champion. We will also like to take advantage of this.
Mr. Cason would like to have more agency participation and presentations during each Steering Committee.
Action 2: Don Buhler will give a cadastral presentation for the
June 5 Steering Committee meeting.
Action 3: Jon Sperling to give a HUD presentation to the Steering Committee in June or October. Status: October
Another possible presentation could be on the National Land Parcel Data
study.
How can we get additional volunteers to communicate GIS applications and how GIS is used to effectively to conduct daily business? Disney presented once, this is the type of thing OMB would like to see.
The Lifecycle management work group is having an agency wide review on recommendations to the appendices of Circular A-16. We would also like to get agencies engaged in Common Services. If there are suggestions or outcomes, we should get those to the Steering Committee.
Q. Regarding the Lifecycle Management recommendation to the appendices; can’t the Steering Committee take action on the appendices without a full blown agency review? An agency review would be needed on a circular revision.
The National Geospatial Advisory Committee has formed some working subcommittees. We have the opportunity to join and help with the subcommittee work. (Subcommittee topics listed below).
Action 4: Anyone wanting to join the NGAC subcommittee,
please contact Ivan DeLoatch at idloatch@usgs.gov
National Geospatial Advisory Committee Follow-up- John Mahoney
[Presentation] [Letter from Chair]
The first two NGAC meetings went well, this is an interesting group of
people that all pulled together very well. They have been appreciative
that the federal government has taken the initiate to reach out in this
subject matter.
The charge from the Chair had several focus areas; advancing the NSDI; public and private partnership issues; how we are managing our resources; feedback on a variety of data initiatives, IFTN, The National Map, and National Land Parcel Data. The meetings took place on April 15 and 16. The first day of the meeting was devoted to administrative and FACA rules. The second day was open for public comment and briefings on key federal geospatial issues were given.
Several subcommittees were formed to accomplish the following issues:
- Develop a NGAC Mission Statement (June 4 – Krucoff, Wallach, Green)
- Develop “Changing Landscape” White Paper (June 4 Outline; July 30 1st Draft - Cowen, Ahearn, Byrne)
- Review data initiatives and develop recommendations for efficient rationalization, prioritization, and implementation (June 4 – background information and full briefing on IFTN)
- Review FGDC Annual Report – Goals (June 4)
- Develop a Transition Plan with Recommendations (November 2008 – O’Connell, Miglarese, Palatiello, Nelson, Goreham, Mondello)
- Design a National Geospatial Strategy (12-18 months; June 4
Outline/draft – Tucker, Dangermond, Schell, Parrish, Palatiello,
Johnston, Nagy, Bennett, Randall Johnson, Schiller, Cowen)
(National Geospatial Strategy Subgroups to be determined)
Geospatial Line of Business Workgroup Update- John Mahoney
Each of the group leads presented an update in their area.
The Joint Business Case work group is working on OMB guidance regarding FY10 planning and funding algorithms, due in early June. In late May, there will be a federal only Coordination Group meeting on budget issues. Time and place TBD.
The Life Cycle Management work group lead is Wendy Blake- Coleman. This work group has many draft products on the way including a lexicon of geospatial terms. They are looking at criteria on how a geospatial theme becomes a theme and also the process of subtracting a theme from A-16. They are also looking at theme definition, it seems that themes and data sets are many times used interchangeably and need to be separated. Authoritative datasets are a sensitive issue in how it fits into the A-16 model.
Action 5: During the next Coordination Group meeting, Wendy
would like to lead a discussion to determine if the Life Cycle
Management group is going in the right direction.
Q. Is there anyone on your team from DOI?
A. Yes, we have Bob Pierce and Karen Hansen, an NHD expert.
The Performance Management work group lead is John Mahoney. Their recent completed activities include:
- Transition of FGDC Task Force to Coordination Group (January 15, 2008)
- Completed Geo LoB Strategic Plan per OMB Passback (March 14, 2008)
- Completed Final LoB Performance Management Plan (March 31, 2008)
The Grants and Contracts work group is lead by Lew Stanford. Gita Urban-Mathieux reported out for the group. Next week there is a three hour meeting to work on the guidance document regarding contract language. Lew has started talking with OMB and others about what the process entails to implement the draft contract language. The group is developing a process flow chart on how this would be implemented.
The Technical Architecture work group lead is Doug Nebert. The group distributed draft FEA Geospatial Profile (Version 2.0) language for agency review in April. Next week the group will meet all day, they will be looking at best practice and other issues.
The Common Services work group is lead by Matt Leopard. The group is focused on two areas: software solutions library and the implementation of common software. Many of you have been contacted by the group to share your software requirements. We are hosting a workshop to review these requirements. The goal is to implement a couple of ELA’s by end of the fiscal year. The response from vendors has been very positive.
On software solutions, there are ties in with Geospatial One Stop. People can tie in their tools and other products, metadata geocoding, browsers etc and set up a registry so it can shared by all. Doug Nebert and Vaishal Sheth will demo a prototype during the upcoming workshop.
Announcement: Beginning Monday May 12, Michael Thieme will be
joining the FGDC Secretariat as part of his SES program training.
Michael will act as Program Manager for the Geo Lob and will work
directly with the work group leads and will carry out the tasks
detailed in the Lob work plans.
FGDC Federal Trail Data Content and Data Transfer Standard – Jonathon Stephens, Jaime Schmidt, David Durran
At the request of the Federal Interagency Trail Council, the Interagency Trail Data Standard (ITDS) has been in development by four federal agencies, the U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. A national interagency team was formed in order to access all the possible data available that would be applicable to all agencies that manage trails.
Several factors became important very quickly, one was to identify a core data set. Data is expensive to collect and maintain. The team looked at many data sets and ran the attributes through a series of review requirement criteria. The review criteria made sure the attitudes had national, state, or regional significance and twenty-four attributes in all were developed. A nice benefit from this effort was that management tools were developed that identified trail classifications or levels of trail development that several states have since adopted. The standard received internal and external reviews and the feedback was incorporated back into the standard. The standard is currently in review with FGDC.
Q. NSGIC works with the RSS 2477 class of trails. It’s a BLM hot
issue dealing mainly with western states and has issues regarding
private property or public lands. Have you dealt with this?
A. If its not applicable with all of the agencies other than just BLM, it would fall thought the sieve and not be caught.
Q. Are trails for birds identified in this standard, regarding the
issue of radio towers and bird deaths?
A. This didn’t make it into the first round. Phase two will include attributes like slope, steepness, things that can be done on trails, etc; we have not dealt with radio towers or bird paths yet.
Q. Will this go in the direction of a geospatial database?
A. This is just core attribution for decision making. The goal is to move this forward for public review. The Standard working group has recommended this for public review.
Q. How will the standard be promoted and who will maintain it?
This was very well coordinated.
A. FWS and NPS will share maintenance.
Does the Coordination Group agree to release this standard for public
review?
Action 6: The Interagency Trail Data Standard will be released for public review.
Wrap-up, Ivan DeLoatch
There will be no Coordination Meeting on June 3rd. The July meeting is scheduled for July 1. In late May we will hold a Federal only Coordination meeting. Time and location TBD.