November 4, 1997 FGDC Coordination Meeting Summary — Federal Geographic Data Committee

Persons Attending
James Woodwell (National League of Cities); Win Lyday (NACo); Hank Garie (NSGIC); Dan Metcalfe (DOJ); Marilyn Legnini (BLM); Miriam Chapman (DOI); Jan Morton (Geologic); MK Miles, (Facilities); Jerry Dobson, (UCGIS); Charles Chalstrom (Geodetic Control); Alan Gaines (NSF); Roberta Quigley (Vegetation); Don Buhler (Cadastral); Gerry Barton (NOAA); David Moorehouse (DOE); Bruce Ambacher (Historical Data); Kathleen Schamel (NRCS); Nancy Lopez (Water Data); Angela Bottom (International Boundaries); Judy Nowakowski (USGS-NMD); Denise Perrecca (Standards); John Moeller, Kathy Covert (FGDC Secretariat)

Welcome
John Moeller welcomed James Woodwell of the National League of Cities (NLC) to the Group. The NLC has requested representation on the FGDC and will now be participating with the Coordination Group and the Steering Committee in actively working to build the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. We welcome NLC and Mr. Woodwell and look forward to working together.

Standards
John Moeller reported that responses to the request for and assessment of standards and priorities had been received from three agencies and six Subcommittees/Working Groups. These responses are identifying needs for some additional standards. Discussion among the members indicated that some agencies and Subcommittees/Working Groups still wish to submit responses. It was agreed that the time for responding would be extended to November 14. After that date the responses will be analyzed for future presentation to the Coordination Group.

Action: Coordination Group Members who have not yet submitted their agency or Subcommittee/Working Group ranking of priorities and needs, should do so by Nov. 14, 1997. Instructions were distributed Oct. 2, 1997 and further refined in the Coordination Group Summary Report of the October 7, 1997 meeting.

The Facilities Working Group has submitted a request for approval to begin the public review of the proposed utilities standard. The Standards Working Group recommends that the standard begin the review stage. Current standards' procedures call for Coordination Group review and approval for beginning the public review. John Moeller raised a question about the value of additional review of the proposed standard by the Coordination Group at this time. The Group agreed that the draft utilities standard should go ahead with public review and that in the future requests for public review will be circulated to the Coordination Group concurrently with the Standards Working Group.

Decision: The proposed utilities standard is approved for public review. Requests for public review of draft standards will be circulated to the Coordination Group and the Standards Working Group concurrently and any issues will be identified to the SWG for action.

Mr. Moeller presented a brief summary of activities for several other new Working Groups. The Cultural Resources Working Group is working on the charter and discussing it with others who have an interest in cultural resource spatial data. The Biological Data Working Group would like to encourage additional agencies to name members for the Working Group. Thus, far agencies have identified about six members.

Action: FGDC Executive Secretariat will send an additional request for members for the Biological Data Working Group.

The three proposed standards forwarded to the Steering Committee were endorsed at the October 22, 1997 Steering Committee Meeting.

Privacy and FOIA
Dan Metcalfe of the Department of Justice gave an excellent presentation on the federal laws guiding administration of Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requirements. This presentation provided a common federal perspective for consideration of proposed FGDC policy statements on access to public information and protection of personal information privacy. After Mr. Metcalfe's presentation, the discussion turned to the proposed FGDC policy statements. Kathy Covert went over the proposed policy statements and addressed comments from the Group. Mr. Metcalfe and several members suggested minor revisions. There also was a consensus of the Group that an appropriate person from OMB should review the proposed policy statements to ensure conformance with any OMB requirements. The Group also discussed the merits of addressing the issue of privacy and FOIA through policy statements or guidelines. The general opinion of the Group was that policy statements would be preferable.

Action: Kathy Covert will make revisions discussed in the meeting and will secure review from OMB.

UCGIS - Participation on Research Working Teams
Dr. Jerry Dobson presented the ten UCGIS Research priorities and discussed the establishment of Working Teams to explore these topics further. The Teams are to be composed of five persons (three from UCGIS members, one from the private sector and one from the government sector). The Teams will conduct their work via e-mail, conference calls or opportunities to get together at other meetings. While there is little or no anticipated travel for the Team, members will be asked to attend and participate in the UCGIS Annual Assembly held in Park City, Utah in June. This travel would be at the expense of the participating organizations. The tasks of the Working Teams are to do the following:

Coordination Group members are asked to identify those research topics for which they would like their organizations to have a Team member. Each organization is requested to submit their top three priority topics for Team participation. After submissions are received, there will likely be a need for the Coordination Group to have a discussion to sort out overlaps or blank spots. The ten Research priorities are detailed in a report distributed to the Steering Committee and Coordination Group entitled AResearch Priorities for Geographic Information Science.@ A summary listing of the titles of the priorities is included at the end of this report. The objective is to have a government representative (federal, state or local) on all Teams of priority interest.

Action: Submit a list of up to three topics for which the agency/organization will commit a Team member. Provide names of proposed Team members if possible. Provide lists to John Moeller by November 25 for discussion at the December Coordination Group meeting.

Reporting on Federal Agency Tool of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure
John Moeller distributed the memorandum on agency reporting of 1997 ESDI activities as modified by the discussion at the October Steering Committee meeting. The changes were to set January 30, 1998, as the due date and to leave it to the Agency Steering Committee Representative to decide how much reporting.

Next Coordination Group Meeting
Please Note: Location is at GTE in Rosslyn and there will be an afternoon session to present, demonstrate and discuss Data Viewer and Access Projects

December 2, 1997

1-2:00          NSDI Clearinghouse
                Distributed Mapping Demo - OGC Tested
2-2:30          NRCS Browser Demonstration
                Other Demos??
2:30 - 2:45     Break
2:45-4:30       Discussion
                Coordinating data viewer and access projects

Location:

Directions: Via Metro - Take Orange or Blue line to Rosslyn Station. Exit onto N. Fort Myer Drive at top of the escalator. Turn left onto N. Fort Myer Drive and go 2 block to Wilson Blvd. Turn right and go one block to N. Nash Street. Turn Left and go one block to N. 17th Street. Cross the red brick plaza to the entrance to seventeen story black glass exterior building. Meeting room is on 12th Floor.

UCGIS Research Priorities for Geographic Information Science