Action 1: Ed Wells or Martha Lombard will speak with Julie Maitra on how to facilitate their process in moving the Address Data Standard forward.
Action 2: Please contact Nancy Doyle to participate on the Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee (nancy.doyle@noaa.gov).
Action 3: Ivan will discuss with Dave Zilkoski which agency representatives he might invite to participate on the Federal Geodetic Subcommittee.
Action 4: Wendy Blake-Coleman will speak with Dave Zilkoski or Nancy Doyle about EPA participation on the Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee.
Action 5: The Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee will coordinate with GEOSS regarding requirements analysis for the Russian and European satellite systems.
Action 6: We would like to encourage our partner organizations to develop nominations for the National Geospatial Advisory Committee. Please spread the word about this opportunity and let us know if we should reach out to someone.
Action 7: If you have ideas or suggestions on mix or voting representation National Geospatial Advisory Committee please contact John Mahoney (jmahoney@usgs.gov ).
Action 8: Marissa Capriotti will send Leslie Armstrong her comments on incorporating soils and watershed information into the BDR.
Action 9: Roxanne Lamb will provide Marissa a copy
of the LoB funding algorithm.
Action Items from Last Meeting – Alison Dishman, FGDC
Address Data Standard Update – Martha Lombard, Spatial Focus
Work on the Address Data Standard began in April 05 at the suggestion of the Coordination Group. The standard’s development has been an open process to allow it to best meet the needs of emergency dispatchers, census enumerators, government administrators, address-issuing authorities, database designers and more.
This standard will be submitted to the Coordination Group for review by late spring or summer.
Q: Will this become an ANSI or ISO standard, beyond
FGDC?
A: Yes. It probably won’t be an ISO standard because
it deals with international addresses which are a whole other
game. We would like to move it to ANSI though.
Q: Do you need help to streamline this process – will
participation from more agencies help move this through more
quickly?
A: The length of the process depends on how many comments
we receive. We hope that our previous 2 rounds of public review
will shorten the comment time. The timing depends on what we need
to do to complete the standard. We have done significant work
upfront. Posting the draft standard on the URISA website has provided
us with a number of comments we could address early on. It is not
just an exchange standard – it has 4 huge parts and we are doing an xml
on top of it.
There is so much variation on local addresses – it has been a challenge with the variations we see across the US. Many of the 350 comments have been related to addressing in different localities…. We have met with DOI, EPA and others. We have made several dozen presentations at various levels of potential users – state, emergency 911 communities – seen by hundreds of people in the last year and a half.
Julie Maitra has been very helpful guiding us through the process.
Ivan: If there is anything else we can do as an FGDC governance structure to help you get this completed, and help you accelerate the process, please let us know.
Q: Are the counties comfortable moving to a national
standard?
A: Yes, having a standard will really help them to work
with their exceptions – to identify anomaly attributes from what they
put in the data model.
We should work through this concurrently with the ANSI standards process. Lessons learned from framework data standards show it will help the standards approval process move more quickly.
Action 1: Ed Wells or Martha Lombard will speak with Julie Maitra on how to facilitate their process in moving the Address Data Standard forward.
Comment: Agree that the FGDC process is an incubator for moving it on to ANSI. Since you have the elements so normalized and in xml – you might be able to create style sheets to render it into foreign address standards. Could become an ISO standard.
Martha: We have noticed that the classification of international address elements – their syntax or order – has a completely different context. We would need to do a lot more research if wanted to make it an ISO standard – it would be very complex. We can explore that but want to be sure we are not getting in over our heads.
Federal Geodetic Control SC Update – Dave Zilkoski, NOAA, National Geodetic Survey Director
Last year Dave Zilkoski became director of NGS. He now chairs the Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee – which recently held a two-day meeting attended by many other agencies. The Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee would like to invite other agencies to participate in their activities, including DHS (FEMA, HQ), State (IBWC, IBC), Transportation (FAA), NOAA (NIST), EPA, NASA, and TVA.
Many agencies use geodetic surveys. The group will conduct government-wide requirements surveys to improve geodetic coordination. This activity has been spurred by the disaster preparedness response required by many agencies. A work group will be created to determine the geodetic requirements of the other FGDC subcommittees and working groups
The group is also looking ahead, in anticipation of the European satellite navigation system that should be available in the next decade, to determine how to coordinate with that data most effectively.
The NGS is developing a 10 year plan that has the opportunity to be updated over the coming years.
Action 2: Please contact Nancy Doyle to participate on the Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee.
Action 3: Ivan will discuss with Dave Zilkoski which agency representatives he might invite to participate on the Federal Geodetic Subcommittee.
Action 4: Wendy Blake-Coleman will speak with Dave Zilkoski or Nancy Doyle about EPA participation on the Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee.
Action 5: The Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee
will coordinate with GEOSS regarding requirements analysis for
the Russian and European satellite systems.
It is the 200th Coast and Geodetic Survey
anniversary. In 1807, President Thomas Jefferson founded
the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (as the Survey of the Coast) to
provide nautical charts to the maritime community for safe passage into
American ports and along our extensive coastline. An
exhibit is touring the country – for more information visit: http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/
Shoreline Data Content Standard Overview / Vote – Eric Linzey, NOAA, National Geodetic Survey
This standard addresses the different Agency-specific definitions and legal definitions of geospatial shoreline. The group developed a metadata profile for shoreline data and is now working on a content standard. The preliminary model was developed to support the various kinds of shoreline – the standard will support the Framework Hydrography theme.
After the standard is endorsed by the FGDC the group will go back and expand the metadata standard. The group has received comments from 2 rounds of pre-public review. It will be discussed at the upcoming ACSM conference as well. After the draft standard completes the FGDC process the group plans to advance it ISO for consideration as an international standard.
Vote: The CG gave approval to advance the Shoreline Data Content Standard for public review.
Vegetation Standard Overview / Vote – Ralph Crawford, USFS
Dr. Crawford thanked Dave Tart for his work as a major participant in the development of the Vegetation Standard.
The development of the National Vegetation Classification Standard has been an extremely energized collaborative process – including 11 major fed and non fed partners – including a professional society – with over 250 years of expertise on the subcommittee.
The group had Canadian and Latin American participants in the hierarchy revisions working group. The standard is not centric to an agency or the US – it reflects an international effort
Implementation will require funding – having talks with the participating agencies – briefing USGS, BLM – it is an ongoing process – there is strong support
This vote will kick off the official FGDC public review. The group plans to create a register to maintain the classification types and add new definitions. The only difference is that if they change their schema they would go through 12 step process. There is an ISO standard on registration of items that provides guidelines on maintenance of registers.
Vote: The CG gave approval to advance the National Vegetation Classification Standard for public review.
Annual Report – Tricia Gibbons, LEAD Alliance
We are within budget and only a month off schedule in the production of the 2006 Annual Report. We have incorporated your comments and will be submitting the final report to the publisher for lay-out.
Please see the presentation for the timeline.
Thank you to USDA and NOAA for providing us pictures and graphics for the report.
Thanks also to the agencies that provided success stories. If you provided us with multiple success stories we may only be able to include one in the printed report due to length constraints, but your complete submissions will be posted on the FGDC website.
CAP Update – Gita Urban-Mathieux, FGDC
[2006 CAP Grant Selection announcement]
The selections for the 50 States category have been made and have been sent to contracts office for final approval. They will be awarded in time for the March 25 NSGIC Conference.
The other category selections will be completed shortly.
We will be able to announce the CAP winners by the end of March.
LoB and FACA Next Steps – John Mahoney, USGS and Leslie Armstrong, FGDC
BDR – is being finalized today and will be sent to whole task force for final review. Leslie Ivan and John will have a walkthrough with OMB today to get additional feedback.
The FY 08 OMB Passback to agencies included the following requirement ":...National Spatial Data Infrastructure data theme steward agencies, as identified in OMB Circular A-16, should also provide a status and planned development baseline for each of the 34 A-16 datasets, including establishment of target dates, costs, and tasks for completing each dataset." OMB has set a tentative due date of May 26 for the reports. USGS/FGDC is developing a straw proposal for a format for the reports. The proposal will be shared with partner agencies for review and comment, then submitted to OMB.
FACA Update – John Mahoney, USGS
The FACA presentation was given to the FGDC Steering Committee on February 15. IT went well – there were just some clarifying questions. The most current FACA documents are online with the Feb 15 Steering Committee minutes.
The call for nominations letter is being approved by DOI and should come out later this month – it will then be posted in the Federal Register and distributed widely.
Action 6: We would like to encourage our partner organizations to develop nominations for the National Geospatial Advisory Committee. Please spread the word about this opportunity and let us know if we should reach out to someone.
Q: Has a resolution been made concerning the number of
feds on the FACA and their voting status?
A: The charter is left open regarding the topic of Federal
votes. The DOI Solicitor’s Office and White House Liaison
Committee staff encourages participation from feds on FACA
committees. It is up to the DOI Secretary’s office to approve the
membership. It is still an open question whether the feds would
have a vote. We have gotten strong opinions on both sides and it
is one of the issues we need to work through.
Q: When will call for nominations go out?
A: It should go out this month with a 45 day comment
period.
Q: Academics expressed concern regarding their
representation on the FACA – are you addressing their concerns
regarding schisms and splits?
A: It will be a challenge to have balanced representation
across the geospatial community with just 25 members. There will
likely be approximately 10 representatives from various levels of
government and then another 10 from the private/non profit sector to
have balance between the two sides. Academia needs to be in the
mix too. The kind of nominations that come in will help determine
how we can work out that balance.
Action 7: If you have ideas or suggestions on mix or voting representation please contact John Mahoney (jmahoney@usgs.gov ).
Other Business
Kathy Covert retired from the FGDC Secretariat last week. We will miss her input on geospatial issues.
Q: Will the BDR be finalized today or tomorrow?
Will its due date still be March 30?
A: We hope to get the BDR out to the LoB task force
by tomorrow so you have a few days to provide feedback before it goes
to OMB. You have a little more than a month to complete it the
BDR and return it to OMB.
Q: Can we add to the BDR if need be?
A: We have focused on trying to eliminate categories
called “other” because it didn’t work well last time. In the
qualitative part of the spread sheet there is an “other” section.
We will consider all feedback but we are trying to trim down the BDR
and have already taken out several data categories.
Action 8: Marissa Capriotti will send Leslie Armstrong her comments on incorporating soils and watershed information into the BDR.
Action 9: Roxanne Lamb will provide Marissa a copy of the LoB funding algorithm.
Q: How will the agencies provide funds?
A: Through MOUs. Agencies are in the process of
signing MOUs to FGDC to fund the LoB Program Management Office
(PMO). Money is not being distributed to agencies – it is
actually being consolidated for standing up the PMO right now.
Meeting Adjourned