[Aust-NZ] RE: Finding a way forward - GeoNetwork as platformto support - unclassified [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Wed May 28 12:01:49 EDT 2008

Hi all,
Here are some comments inline from me.

On May 28, 2008, at 5:51 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:

> Hi John, some comments inline
>
> John.Hockaday at ga.gov.au wrote:
>> Hi Cameron,
>>
>> Some of these proposals are quite good.  I am just left a ISO TC  
>> 211 GEOREL
>> and digital rights management model for geospatial information  
>> meeting.  The
>> project team believe that this standard is ready for implementation  
>> testing.
>> That means that we could take the XSDs and model and use GeoNetwork  
>> to
>> implement and test GeoREL.  It will be a great opportunity for both  
>> testing a
>> new standard and to get digital rights management into GeoNetwork.
>>
> Interesting, it will be good to hear your thoughts when you return.

Yes, please ventilate on the geonetwork-devel list too. Now is the  
time to inject that in our community. A design phase should start this  
June in our hacking event in Bolsena and both DRM and authentication  
need to be addressed (see more below).
>
>> One of the key components that Federal and State agencies would  
>> like to see
>> implemented with GeoREL or GeoDRM is Creative Commons licencses.   
>> Today I say
>> that this can be theoretically catgered for but we need to test it  
>> with some
>> sort of open source GeoDRM management.  That would be a great step  
>> forward.
>>
> For Geographic data, I suggest considering the Zero Commons license.  
> Projects like Open Street Map, which have thousands of editors are  
> having problems with the practicalities of attribution and the Zero  
> Commons License addresses this.
>> Another essential matter is referencing reusable components in the  
>> metadata.
>> The Xlink attribute is available for this compoenent but there is  
>> no software
>> that I know of that actually resolves these xlink references.  If  
>> that was
>> incorporated into GeoNetwork it would make metadata creation and  
>> management a
>> lot easier and useful.

This is also something that will be addressed now.
>>
>>
>> I noticed your emails to the GN developers list about creating a  
>> more user
>> friendly editing tool for GN.  One option that Simon Pigot and I  
>> discussed
>> was the use of XFORMs and/or incorporating the XML into HTML forms  
>> rather
>> than using XSL to do the whole presentation.  This may be a very  
>> useful area
>> to look into.
>>
> We have been honoured to have Simon Pigot contribute to a kick-off  
> design meeting.
> And yes, XForms looks very promising. We are looking into it as one  
> of our options.

Excellent! Simon will be in Bolsena to, so it can be discussed further  
there if needed.
>
>> Finally ebRIM is a possibility.  There needs to be a better way of  
>> rlating
>> the actual resource to the metadata so that once the desired  
>> resource is
>> identified via the metadata then that resource can be more easily  
>> accessed.
>>
> Yes, this could be something to investigate next.

Through a project with the European Space Agency the ebRIM model will  
be implemented in GeoNetwork. One of the prime goals of this is to  
improve the internal handling of metadata and make sure other  
interfaces and GN as a whole benefit of some of the ebRIM advantages.  
The project runs until the end of this year and should be stable by  
the end of January 2009. We'll work with the community to spec out the  
implementation, so it would be more than welcome to see you people  
participate in this process.

Ciao,
Jeroen

>
>> These are just a few ideas that a developer may wish to delve into.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> John
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-anzlicmet-l at postoffice.utas.edu.au
>> [mailto:owner-anzlicmet-l at postoffice.utas.edu.au] On Behalf Of  
>> Cameron
>> Shorter
>> Sent: Monday, 26 May 2008 9:28 PM
>> To: robert.woodcock at csiro.au
>> Cc: anzlicmet-l at listserv.its.utas.edu.au; aust-nz at lists.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] RE: Finding a way forward - GeoNetwork as  
>> platformto
>> support - unclassified [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
>>
>> I had a productive conversation with Rob Woodcock last week further  
>> discussing how we should move forward with Geonetwork and Geoserver.
>>
>> Australia, like the rest of the world has seen the value of a  
>> working SDI and over the last decade has started deploying nodes  
>> into a national Spatial Data Infrastructure. Some of these nodes  
>> are in production, but to date most have been deployed as Proof of  
>> Concepts. To move to the next phase we need production quality  
>> infrastructure.
>>
>> This is very achievable. We have all the key requirements for a  
>> successful project:
>>
>> 1. There are many Government agencies with a desire and use cases  
>> for SDI. These agencies have budgets to solve their immediate  
>> business problems.
>>
>> 2. CSIRO, through the NCRIS project have budget and mandate to  
>> address many of the core SDI infrastructure issues, in particular  
>> targeting Geonetwork and Geoserver.
>>
>> 3. We have companies like LISAsoft with the experience to provide  
>> production quality service for the Open Source Geospatial stack.
>>
>> I propose our next steps to be:
>> a. Set up a wiki to collect this information. Rob Wooddate  
>> suggested using the Seagrid twiki. (Rob, care to suggest a starting  
>> page).
>> b. Collaboratively scope who all our stakeholders are. (Ben Searle,  
>> I suspect you can jump start us here).
>> c. Define our key user requirements. I understand these have been  
>> identified before. Where are they kept? Do they need to be revised?  
>> (Ben, again I think you are likely to be able to give us a jump  
>> start)
>> d. Scope the work, assemble a development team, deliver to  
>> milestones, work closely with Open Source community, as per Project  
>> Management and Software Development principles. The project will  
>> likely include both multiple stakeholders and multiple development  
>> organisations, and hence particular attention should be paid to  
>> strong project management. This is quite achievable - it has been  
>> done by Open Source projects for years, but it is a risk area to  
>> watch closely.
>>
>> robert.woodcock at csiro.au wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Bruce, Ben, Cameron, Simon and others,
>>>
>>> This discussion is very welcome and timely and I congratulate  
>>> Bruce on taking the step to start this thread. I'd like to provide  
>>> some information on activities with which I am involved as I  
>>> believe they can provide some much needed resourcing and  
>>> facilitation going forward.
>>>
>>> Following Cameron's lead I will "pigeon hole" myself as I may well  
>>> be a new contact to most reading this list: I have a background in  
>>> commercial software development and R&D, in particular  
>>> commercialisation and technology transfer, involving geospatial  
>>> information management, interoperability, e-Research, high  
>>> performance computing and numerical analysis. I'm now the Director  
>>> of Auscope Grid (an NCRIS initiative - NCRIS 5.13 www.auscope.org <http://www.auscope.org/ 
>>> > ) and the Project Manager for the Spatial Information Services  
>>> Stack (SISS - which Ben Searle mentioned is part of NCRIS 5.16).  
>>> To round out the responsibilities, I'm also responsible (not  
>>> solely, but I'm accountable for the services and conferences) for  
>>> the community forum on open geospatial standards called the Solid  
>>> Earth and Environment Grid (SEEGrid - www.seegrid.csiro.au <http://www.seegrid.csiro.au/ 
>>> >) and a member of the NCRIS Australian e-Research Infrastructure  
>>> Council (AeRIC) and the NCRIS Engineering Architecture Taskforce  
>>> (NEAT).
>>>
>>> For a number of years my team (which is more than just CSIRO based  
>>> but that is a story for another day) has been working with others  
>>> towards the creation of an open standards based interoperable  
>>> geoscience infrastructure for Australia. Collaboration with both  
>>> Australian and International organisations resulted in the  
>>> formation of the SEE Grid community, a number of testbeds (e.g.  
>>> CGI interoperability experiments with GeosciML, Minerals Council  
>>> of Australia and Geological Surveys Geochemistry, ebXML registry  
>>> and repository) and various information models and tools (e.g.  
>>> ANZLIC ISO metadata profile, GeosciML, OGC Observations and  
>>> Measurements, Geoserver community schema support, Fullmoon and  
>>> Hollow World GML application schema modelling tools). Most of  
>>> these outcomes have completed their "testbed" phase and some are  
>>> moving to ISO standardisation or broader uptake.
>>>
>>> The reason I say this GeoNetwork discussion is timely is NCRIS has  
>>> provided an opportunity to make the step change from testbeds and  
>>> demonstrators to production grade services. To date many of the  
>>> activities have been, as Cameron noted, "for the work being  
>>> done, ...under-resourced". This is particularly true as a move  
>>> from testbeds to production grade services requires considerable  
>>> investment and appropriate staff to achieve quality assurance,  
>>> branch management, help desk support, deployment, and so forth. It  
>>> is a credit to the NCRIS process and the Auscope board and AeRIC,  
>>> that this investment is actually being made (to the tune of nearly  
>>> $10 million by mid 2011) and the strategic objective, in an open  
>>> standards/source way, is to achieve production grade  
>>> infrastructure for geospatial & geoscience information.
>>>
>>> To this end, the NCRIS activities I am involved with (Auscope and  
>>> SISS) are:
>>>
>>>    * Seeking feedback and engagement with the broader community on
>>>      where best to target the available resources to achieve the
>>>      production grade services infrastructure - fill in the gaps to
>>>      production services and complement/support the existing
>>>      activities. Flexibility and cooperation is a key ingredient
>>>    * Establishing a quality assurance framework around the Spatial
>>>      Information Services stack including - packaging/installation,
>>>      regression testing/unit-test suites
>>>    * Performing development on core open source technologies in the
>>>      stack so they are interoperable, in sync with the open source
>>>      community developments
>>>    * Establishing a maintenance and support environment including
>>>      help desk, priority bug fixes in the Australian and New Zealand
>>>      context, deployment assistance, training, sample deployments
>>>    * Developing features necessary to support the Australian and New
>>>      Zealand geospatial communities - in particular those areas
>>>      represented in NCRIS noting that is a very large group of
>>>      Government and non-government organisations already.
>>>    * Seeking to facilitate/assist organisations and communities that
>>>      might be able to sustain the stack beyond the lifetime of the
>>>      NCRIS investments so that the organisations that deploy have a
>>>      sustainable technology base - with my CSIRO hat on success is
>>>      defined as my not having a job at the end of the activity!  
>>> <grin>
>>>
>>> On a more technical note, the SISS is currently based on the  
>>> following open source technologies:
>>>
>>>   1. Geoserver - with community schema extensions
>>>   2. GeoNetworks
>>>   3. THREDDS, Hyrax
>>>   4. Web Portals and Desktop clients - various samples are being  
>>> made
>>>      available particularly for training and regression testing
>>>      purposes (e.g. Googlemap portal, udig, sample java desktop  
>>> clients)
>>>   5. OGC standards
>>>   6. GeosciML standards for geoscience information
>>>
>>> Due to our previous work we already have reasonably good links  
>>> with the open source communities involved and broadly the  
>>> Australian and New Zealand activities around Geoserver. Geospatial  
>>> and Geoscience information standards and the Web Portal and  
>>> Desktop clients. We are less well connected with the GeoNetworks  
>>> community (something we are actively seeking to improve) though we  
>>> have a strong involvement in registries, metadata standards and  
>>> the ANZLIC profile.
>>>
>>> Whilst I believe the strategic intent of these activities, our  
>>> collaborations, and the investment level are capable of  
>>> contributing to the broadly desired outcomes Bruce mentioned in  
>>> his initial e-mail, the move to production services and actually  
>>> having a large investment does create some additional challenges  
>>> both in project management and the, more important, social  
>>> interaction side of the community.
>>>
>>> Flexibility and communication are clearly keys to achieving our  
>>> shared objectives and I welcome any feedback or suggestions on how  
>>> the activities and resources represented by the Auscope and SISS  
>>> investments could serve the ongoing development of GeoNetwork ,  
>>> Geoserver and more broadly the spatial information services stack.  
>>> We do have a plan to keep things moving but it is not set in stone  
>>> and there is flexibility in the resourcing to "grease the wheels"  
>>> so to speak to ensure the necessary gaps can be filled - you may  
>>> just find we change the plan to resource the need.
>>>
>>> I look forward to continuing this conversation.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Rob
>>>
>>> Dr Robert Woodcock
>>>
>>> CSIRO Exploration & Mining ,
>>>
>>> ARRC, 26 Dick Perry Ave,
>>>
>>> Kensington, WA 6151 Australia
>>>
>>> Phone +61 8 6436 8780 Fax +61 8 6436 8586
>>>
>>> 	
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Systems Architect
> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
> http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html
>
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