Action items.
Action 1: Prior to November 12, please have someone from your agency volunteer to participate in the Electronic Records Management (ERM) Geospatial Data Transfer Cycle review. Contact Bruce Ambacher at 301.837.1480, or bruce.ambacher@nara.gov.
Action 2: Contact Robin Fegeas, rfegeas@usgs.gov or 703.648.4511 to participate in the review of the Spatial Data Transfer Standard.
Action 3: R.J. Thompson will send the draft CRSP plan to the FGDC Coordination Group review and comment.
Action 4: Please send R.J. Thompson (rjthompson@usgs.gov) the senior civil representative from your agency that you would like to receive the draft plan of the Commercial Remote Sensing Policy (CRSP) from Dr. Chip Groat. This draft plan will be distributed in early September and will have a short turn-around time.
Action 5: R.J. Thompson will ensure that the FGDC Steering Committee representatives also receive the CRSP draft plan to help allow for a broader agency response.
Action 6: The FGDC website is being revised. Please send suggestions regarding the content of the website to Lesley Ogrosky at logrosky@fgdc.gov.
Action 7: Volunteers are needed to host the November 4, December 2, and January 6 Coordination Group meetings. Please contact Alison Kiernan (akiernan@fgdc.gov) if you can host one or all of these meetings.
Host: Donald Draper Campbell, FCC
Attendees:
Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC
Alison Kiernan, FGDC
John Kane, NARA
Chuck Dull, USFS
Barry Napier, USFS/DHS
Michelle Torreano, EPA
Sam Bacharach, OGC
Mark Reichardt, OGC
David Morehouse, DOE
Tim Trainor, Census
Scott McAfee, DHS/FEMA
Nancy Blyler, USACE
Carol Brandt, USDOT/BTS
Lee R. Warren, NIMA
Leslie Wollack, GOS/NASA
Ralph Crawford, USFS
Ted Hull, NARA
Bruce Ambacher, NARA
Fred Miller, GSA
Stacy Wood, NCPC
Billy Tolar, USGS/National Atlas
Leslie Weiner Leandro, DHS
Kenneth Bossung, Ionic
Anne O'Connor, Census
Myra Bambacus, NASA
Beth Lachman, RAND
RJ Thompson, USGS
Via Teleconference:
Barb White, FWS
Anne Hale Miglarese, NOAA CSC
Update - Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC Acting Staff Director
Both Mark Forman, director of the E-Gov initiatives, and Tony Frater, the Government-to-Government Portfolio Manger for E-Gov, are no longer with OMB. Karen S. Evans formerly the CIO for DOE will replace Mark Forman at OMB. Ivan will speak with Dan Chenok, OMB, regarding Tony Frater's replacement to ensure that we continue our momentum on the Geospatial One-Stop.
The announcement of the permanent FGDC Staff Director should be made sometime in the coming month.
Today's agenda is not as robust as it could be - this is only going to be a two-hour meeting. We need to begin to think about pending issues that need to be addressed by the Coordination Group. A discussion is needed regarding the necessity of monthly Coordination Group meetings.
Transfer of Permanent Geospatial Records to NARA - Bruce Ambacher, NARA
The Electronic Records Management (ERM) Initiative is one of 24 Presidential E-Gov Initiatives. Unlike the Geospatial One-Stop, it is not an IT web-based product. The ERM E-Gov Initiative is a government-to-government service approach to effectively manage and facilitate access to agency information in order to support and accelerate decision-making and accountability. NARA is in charge of the issue area pertaining to transfer of permanent electronic records - and will address an expansion of both the number of formats NARA can accept and the media and techniques that can be used by Federal agencies when transferring their electronic records to the National Archives of the United States. NARA is examining expanded transfer mechanisms and has guidance websites available at:
http://www.archives.gov/records_management/initiatives/email_attachments.html;
http://www.archives.gov/records_management/initiatives/scanned_textual.html; http://www.archives.gov/records_management/initiatives/pdf.html
In addition to the above formats, the ERM will also address transfer formats for digital photography, geospatial data, and web pages. Digital geospatial records transfer standards will be developed from November 12, 2003 - April 15, 2004 through research, pilot transfers, and resulting guidance. Bruce Ambacher requests Agency participants to review the Geospatial Data Transfer Cycle and comment on draft guidance. Issues related to licensing, data ownership, interoperability vs. "archiving", and Clearinghouse vs. "archiving" will not be addressed in this transfer format guidance.
Action 1: Prior to November 12, please have someone from your agency volunteer to participate in the Electronic Records Management (ERM) Geospatial Data Transfer Cycle review. Contact Bruce Ambacher at 301.837.1480, or bruce.ambacher@nara.gov.
[ PowerPoint 119KB ]
INCITS/L1 Project to Update the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) - Robin Fegeas, USGS
The Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) is undergoing a 5-year review due to the evolution of technology, standards and the role of the SDTS since being adopted as an ANSI Standard in 1998. The SDTS has been in existence since the late 1980s after being developed by the National Committee for Digital Cartographic Standards (NCDCDS) and the FICCDC (precursor to the FGDC). The SDTS philosophy for the transfer of spatial data is that it be self-documenting, complete, modular and include metadata and information for software and users to read. Features and spatial objects, as well as the attributes that are tied to the features are transferred. The SDTS will be revised through review, mapping current SDTS constructs, and selecting target enhancements. The SDTS will be brought into compatibility with ISO Standards. The project will be scoped by April 15, 2004 and will be finished by April 15, 2005. SDTS needs to be totally integrated into a complete package that encodes schema and semantic interoperability.
Action 2: Contact Robin Fegeas, rfegeas@usgs.gov or 703.648.4511 to participate in the review of the Spatial Data Transfer Standard.
[ PowerPoint 121KB ]
Commercial Remote Sensing Policy Implementation Working Group - R.J. Thompson, USGS
The Commercial Remote Sensing Policy (CRSP) is being developed for civilian agencies and presents an opportunity to increase civilian agency buying power; leverage contractual mechanisms and funding to support civil agency requirements; support agency enterprise architecture implementation; and provide more predictable satisfaction of remote sensing requirements. R.J. Thompson has met three times with a total of 75 civil agency representatives. Civil agency themes have included: space vs. airborne; relationship to LandSat Data Continuity Mission (LCDM) and other government systems: data continuity and timeliness; budget and funding; accessibility/sharing of data; one-stop shopping for capabilities; possible legal/liability issues; procurement and licensing; and role of NIMA and the national security community.
Q: Can agencies get information sent directly from space craft? Because the FCC may have a problem with the non-government frequencies used. This plan should be run through the Department of Commerce regarding the distribution of data by radio waves. The Interdepartmental Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) has representatives from each Federal agency and would be a good place to discuss this issue.
A: Up to now all discussions with providers have been contractual. It would be good to vet this issue through the IRAC.
Q: What about the State, local and academic communities that would like to be able to share our data?
A: This is a priority issue. State and local access will be part of the licensing structure. If public domain is an important characteristic that we need we will be sure to lay those requirements on the table.
Q: What is the timeline for short-term requirements?
A: An interagency work group will be formed to determine these requirements. We may do a follow-up to the study sent out by the Ad Hoc CIRS Working Group two years ago. It will probably take a few years to get the requirements process down so that it is not too bureaucratic.
Q: Will the contract mechanism be for service providers or data providers?
A: The policy itself encourages systems to services. When we know the agencies' requirements there may need to be a different contract mechanism than for only satellites.
The group identified 9 cross-cutting areas including: agriculture, emergency response, homeland security, mapping, natural resources, research & development, transportation, and weather and climate.
Action 3: R.J. Thompson will send the draft CRSP plan to the FGDC Coordination Group review and comment.
Action 4: Please send R.J. Thompson (rjthompson@usgs.gov) the senior civil representative from your agency that you would like to receive the draft plan of the Commercial Remote Sensing Policy (CRSP) from Dr. Chip Groat. This draft plan will be distributed in early September and will have a short turn-around time.
Action 5: R.J. Thompson will ensure that the FGDC Steering Committee representatives also receive the CRSP draft plan to help allow for a broader agency response.
Upcoming NSGIC Annual Meeting - Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC
At the upcoming NSGIC Annual Conference from September 15-18 in Nashville, TN, Federal agency presentations should focus on how NSGIC can participate with the Federal agencies. We need to be clear about the States' relationships to the National Map and other Federal geospatial activities. NSGIC planners provided questions to the Federal members regarding what they would like to hear in the Federal presentations.
Other business:
Action 6: The FGDC website is being revised. Please send suggestions regarding the content of the website to Lesley Ogrosky at logrosky@fgdc.gov.
Action 7: Volunteers are needed to host the November 4, December 2, and January 6 Coordination Group meetings. Please contact Alison Kiernan (akiernan@fgdc.gov) if you can host one or all of these meetings.
Next Coordination Group meeting:
October 7, 2003
Hosted by National Capital Planning Commission
401 9th Street, NW • North Lobby, Suite 500 • Washington, D.C. 20576
(An agenda with location info will be forwarded in late September)