Geospatial One-Stop Portal: Call for Additional Requirements

I am forwarding the e-mail letter below in view of the deep
connections between the geosptial data infrastructure and the
Global Information Locator Service. Since its inception, the
geospatial data catalog has required a search interface that
is GILS-compliant. The respective new Web Services and UDDI
mechanisms will also be interoperable. (FYI, see the e-Gov
project "Agreement on Certain Information Architecture Principles"
http://www.gils.net/disasterhelp/principles.rtf adopted in July.)

Please reply to the Call if you work with geospatial information,
or forward to other people or lists that may be involved in such.
(And please excuse multiple receipt due to the cross-posting !)

Eliot Christian, USGS

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Dear Colleague,

This letter is an introduction and invitation to participate in the
development of the Geospatial One Stop Portal. I hope you will engage
with this opportunity to help define the functional requirements for
the Portal and help improve accessibility to geospatial data for all
levels of government. I invite you also to forward this Call within
your organization and to interested colleagues for the broadest
possible distribution.

First, let me introduce the Geospatial One Stop initiative.
Geospatial One-Stop is one of 24 federal E-Government initiatives
to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and customer service throughout
all layers of government.  Geospatial One-Stop builds upon National
Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) objectives to enhance
interoperability among geographic components of government activities
and to maintain a common inventory of geospatial content and services.
The implementation of the Geospatial One-Stop in the near-term will:

* Build consensus on and publish standard content models
    for several basic themes of geospatial data, known as
    Framework data, with specifications as needed to ensure
    interoperability;

* Ensure that existing content at Federal and non-Federal
    levels in Framework data themes has been documented and
    published;

* Publish descriptions of planned spatial data collection
    activities to minimize redundant data gathering;

* Establish interoperable data access and visualization
    services for at least the Framework data themes; and

* Provide an online information discovery, data access and
    mapping Portal. That Portal is the main subject of this
    letter.

The Geospatial One-Stop Portal will operate as a general user
interface to distributed geospatial data and services, with maximum
participation among all levels of government. Furthermore,
applications such as desktop GIS software, Decision Support Systems,
and other portal-type services will be able to utilize the One-Stop
Portal through published open software interfaces.

The Geospatial One-Stop Portal Team includes state, local, and
federal representatives working together to define the requirements
of the Portal and to guide the implementation of the first version.
We are addressing such questions as:  What will this portal provide?
What will it look like? How will it function across many different
interfaces? We are identifying the requirements that users have and
we are developing an architecture for a portal that will access
validated Framework data and other data using open-standard interface
specifications.

This is where you come in.

We are seeking input on the Portal requirements from local, state,
tribal and federal organizations that either provide or use
geospatial data. The Portal Team has already identified some
requirements for the Portal--that is, some of the functions it must
be able to perform--but we are seeking comments on those requirements
and new requirements not yet identified. This Call for Additional
Requirements is your opportunity to participate in the process.

The One-Stop activity is designed to improve the ability of peer
organizations to discover and access digital geospatial data over the
web in real time. For example, this could mean the exchange of local
data across county lines within a watershed, or across state
boundaries for emergency management purposes. We think of the
One-Stop as the newest infrastructure in our country, increasing
information access, strengthening partnerships among governmental
entities, and implementing standards, access and opportunities for
multiple sectors and interests.

What's in it for you?

Benefits of participating in this project include the ability to
advertise and publish data sets with standard content, to gain early
access to discovery, mapping, and data delivery solutions, and to
have your requirements as a user incorporated into the functional
definition of the access portal--in short, to more easily exchange
common information content within a broad, diverse community.

Please visit http://www.geo-one-stop.gov/cfar/, where you will find
a document describing the Geospatial One-Stop Portal and existing
requirements, and instructions for providing input, including a
template for submitting additional requirements. Responses received
by November 22, 2002 will receive the fullest consideration in
version 1 of the Geospatial One-Stop Portal. Later responses will be
retained for consideration in the continuing One-Stop initiative.

Again, I invite you to forward this message to other interested parties.
I thank you for you time and look forward to your participation. For
questions about this Call for Additional Requirements please contact
the Portal Manager, Dr. Jeff de La Beaujardiere, at 301-286-1569 or
portal-cfar-comments@sunrise.gsfc.nasa.gov. To respond to this Call,
please see the instructions at the web page above.

Sincerely,
Myra Bambacus
Executive Director (acting), Geospatial One-Stop

-- 
Myra J. Bambacus
Program Manager
NASA's Geospatial Interoperability Office
301-286-3215

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Received on Thursday, 7 November 2002 06:03:27 UTC