Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group Charter

DRAFT - Do Not Disseminate outside this group - DRAFT

This is a PROPOSAL ONLY - No ENDORSEMENTS implied

Mission

The mission of the Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to review the current state-of-the-art in vocabularies used in the emergency management sector and to investigate the path forward via an emergency management systems information interoperability framework. These activities will lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive approach to ontology management and semantic information interoperability leading to a proposal for future longer-term W3C Working Group activity.

Note: The term Emergency Management is used holistically and in its broadest sense.

Join the Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group.

End date	X August 2008
Confidentiality	Proceedings are public
Initial Chairs	Renato Iannella, NICTA
Initiating Members	National ICT Australia (NICTA) Google IBM (TBC)
Usual Meeting Schedule	Teleconferences: Monthly Face-to-face: Once/Twice Annually

Scope

The Emergency Management sector encompasses a broad spectrum of the global community and covers both short term actions, such as the response to an natural hazard, medium-term actions, such as the recovery from such hazards, and long-term actions, such as mitigation activities and community resilience capacity building. In effect, everyone is involved in the Emergency Management sector, which makes collaboration and sharing information vital.

Information systems can have a tremendous value to help manage the scale of the Emergency Management sector operations, from day-to-day mitigation and resilience activities to immediate actions when a disaster strikes. Each stakeholder group needs to understand the vocabulary of others, and exchange information in common formats, to support data integration for critical decision making.

The types of functions and roles supported by the Emergency Management sector include:

Early warning services to the public
Resilience networks of local services and groups performing crisis functions
Situational awareness of emergency risks and crisis planning
Rapid damage assessment of areas and critical infrastructure
Missing and displaced people management
Coordination of relief organizations roles and responsibilities
Managing relief logistics

In essence, this XG aims to encourage the Emergency Management sector to move towards the adoption of compatible information systems before any disaster and therefore to develop the capacity and capability of strategic long-term local Emergency Management and short-term relief operations.

Success Criteria

The XG will prove successful if, in addition to the Deliverables, it will:

encourage collaboration between experts, local authorities, relief specialists and non-governmental agencies,
promote the development of common standards and protocols for coordinating information gathered in anticipation of potential risks, and
highlight best practices in simplifying the exchange of information across the sector.

Deliverables

This XG will develop three specific outcomes.

XG Report on the current state-of-the-art of vocabularies and terminologies used in the Emergency Management sector. This will present a categorised snap-shot of the sector's ontology usage and development plans.
XG Report on an interoperability information framework for the Emergency Management sector. This will provide a reference model for information interoperability across the sector.
Final XG Report with recommendations for future activities.

Dependencies

While the XG will not have any direct dependencies, there are a number of related efforts with which it intends to maintain close communications. The XG intends to collect and categorize numerous Emergency Management related vocabularies and in the process will gain a comprehensive picture of the key stakeholders in this sector. This will include existing standards groups (eg OASIS, UN), national emergency management groups, and international resilience and relief organisations. The XG will solicit and welcome input from these and other efforts of which we become aware during the duration of the XG.

Participation

It is envisioned that the XG will teleconference every month at a time that provides an adequate compromise over the various time zones of the interested participants. Extensive discussion will also be carried out on the XG mailing list. Additionally, it may be useful to have one or two face-to-face meetings at a venue for which a significant number of XG participants are likely to attend.

Expected participation follows the W3C Process Document discussion of Good Standing.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list public-xg-eiif@w3.org (archive) . The group's Member-only list is member-xg-eiif@w3.org (archive)

Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group home page.

Decision Policy

As explained in the Process Document (section 3.3), this group will seek to make decisions when there is consensus. When the Chair puts a question and observes dissent, after due consideration of different opinions, the Chair should record a decision (possibly after a formal vote) and any objections, and move on.

When deciding a substantive technical issue, the Chair may put a question before the group. The Chair must only do so during a group meeting, and at least two-thirds of participants in Good Standing must be in attendance. When the Chair conducts a formal vote to reach a decision on a substantive technical issue, eligible voters may vote on a proposal one of three ways: for a proposal, against a proposal, or abstain. For the proposal to pass there must be more votes for the proposal than against. In case of a tie, the Chair will decide the outcome of the proposal.
This charter is written in accordance with Section 3.4, Votes of the W3C Process Document and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Policy

This Incubator Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on the topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds Incubator Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Incubator Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Incubator Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure obligations do apply.

Incubator Groups have as a goal to produce work that can be implemented on a Royalty Free basis, as defined in the W3C Patent Policy.

All Participants in this XG must make a statement that they Agree or Do not agree to the following two commitments:

The Participant I represent agrees to offer licenses according to the W3C Royalty-Free licensing requirements described in section 5 of the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy for any portions of the XG Reports produced by this XG that are subsequently incorporated into a W3C Recommendation.
If the Participant joins a W3C Working Group that incorporates into a W3C Recommendation-track document any portions of the XG Reports produced by this XG, the Participant I represent agrees to waive the right in that Working Group to exclude Essential Claims with respect to those portions of the XG Reports.

Note: A Participant in this type of XG may change a "Do not agree" statement to a "Agree" statement at any time (even after the close of the XG). A Participant must not change an "Agree" statement to a "Do not agree" statement.

For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

About this Charter

This charter for the Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group has been created according to the Incubator Group Procedures documentation. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Renato Iannella

$Date: 2007/06/27 $