[Aust-NZ] GeoNetwork Annual Workshop [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[John.Weaver at ga.gov.au]

G'day Bruce

 

I've added my responses in line

 

John Weaver

Manager, Office of Spatial Data Management

Geoscience Australia

 

Post: GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601

Ph 6249 9590

Email: john.weaver at osdm.gov.au

 

Web: www.osdm.gov.au <http://www.osdm.gov.au/> 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of
Bruce.Bannerman at dpi.vic.gov.au
Sent: Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:18 AM
To: Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: RE: [Aust-NZ] GeoNetwork Annual Workshop [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

 


IMO: 


Hello John, 

Its great to hear from you. Thanks for the input. 

Comments inline below...


<John.Weaver at ga.gov.au> wrote on 16/07/2008 05:18:55 PM:

> G'day Bruce and Others...., 
>   
> I felt it appropriate to provide some details of metadata activities
> in general and GeoNetwork specifically from an OSDM perspective. 
>   
> OSDM has been working with Software Improvements, a Canberra based 
> company who have been developing a version of the Australian Spatial
> Data Directory (ASDD) using GeoNetwork.  This is part of a pilot 
> project we are supporting for ANZLIC.  While there is a little way 
> to go before GeoNetwork is at a stage where it can provide an 
> improved capability and be more user friendly, progress is being 
> made.  Software Improvements have had some contact with Simon Pigot 
> in relation to this development effort. 
>   
> From an ANZLIC perspective, the recent Council meeting closed the 
> ANZLIC metadata project and established an on-going ANZLIC discovery
> and access program.  OSDM has a role as lead agency in this program 
> and is working with a Steering Group consisting of Queensland, 
> Victoria, Western Australia, New Zealand and the ANZLIC Office. 
>   
> In simple terms we are approaching this program on a number of 
> fronts.  The first is to provide a simple ANZLIC compliant metadata 
> entry tool and a metadata for dummies guide.   

Excellent! 


Can you shed some more light on this please? 

 

(I'm assuming that there will be a roadmap allowing this to be migrated to
GeoNetwork in time.)

 

Yes to you're question below. The next para is all about the tool and we see
it as a supplement to the GeoNetwork tools.

It's main advantages are

It's free to download
http://www.defence.gov.au/im/business/spatial/met/main.htm
<http://www.defence.gov.au/im/business/spatial/met/main.htm>  is the DSG
version

It's wizard based and so

it's something that anyone can use, down to a community group or school
student capturing data on a local catchment or project, with no training and

it produces validated XML as well as a plain English version of the metadata

 

We don't see a migration path as such, rather we are continuing parallel
development of the GeoNetwork tool set because it is required for an
enterprise level implementation of a metadata collection, management,
discovery tool

 

The GeoNetwork ASDD implementation is the third tier of the structure and
OSDM is pursuing this development along with the first two above.

 

The three tiers are different but interdependent. Without a working
GeoNetwork Spatial Data Directory node or something similar there's nowhere
to publish the records collected using the simple tool for example.




> An existing 
> application developed for a non-spatial area of Defence is being 
> investigated by the ANZLC Steering Committee.  This wizard based 
> tool is ISO19115 compliant and can provide XML outputs of the 
> Defence metadata profile.  It is not a management or query tool.  
> However, we believe that we can have an ANZLIC compliant version of 
> this in 2-3 months.  It will be freely available for anyone to 
> download from the OSDM web site, install and use. 


Is this the MET tool above? 




>   
> The second front is GeoNetwork and development of this capability.  
> OSDM is working with NCRIS and Rob Woodcock in relation to the 
> Spatial Information Services Stack (SISS), a component of which will
> consist of GeoNetwork development to meet identified user needs.  
> Our initial thoughts on this relate to ease of use and ease of 
> modification (due to limited documentation) and also the 
> significance of having an effective and usable ASDD.  At this stage 
> GeoNetwork it is not considered suitable to provide to agencies to 
> meet their enterprise metadata management needs, since the learning 
> curve is too steep.  I am hoping that the SISS activity will reduce 
> this burden. 



With appropriate structure and resourcing, we should be able to turn this
situation around. 

While Rob's team will be able to provide a great initial capability, I'm
concerned 
that other organisations will sit on their hands and expect others (or the
mythical 
Open Source Fairy!) to do the work. I sorry for being blunt, but this needs
to be said. 

We need to get a structure in place that allows us to work with the
GeoNetwork Open Source 
Community. We don't have to do all of this work ourselves. There is a world
community out 
there who want the same capabilities that we do. Taking a quick snapshot of
current activities: 

- NZ Dept of Defence is looking at integrating some work that will allow for 
  (limited) automtic harvesting of metadata records from existing spatial 
  data sets. 

- The European Space Agency is currently funding development of ebRIM
functionality 
  within GeoNetwork. 

If we were to start a structured process to address the issues that you have
identified 
and also that Jeroen and the GeoNetwork Developers identified at Bolsena, I
think that we'll 
start seeing a number of organisations from around the world starting to help
to fix the 
underlying problems and quickly get the project on track. 

For the Australian specific work, we should not just sit back and expect
CSIRO to do all 
of the work. We as Managers, Developers, Architects etc should start looking
at our budgets 
and projects (if we haven't already) to see what we can do. This is
fundamental SDI 
capability that we all just have to have. 

If we all just invest a little, we'll be surprised by how much comes back. 


Now having said that, just how different is the Australian Profile from ISO
19115 19139? 

I agree with you on this.

 

OSDM and ANZLIC have committed money and resources to progressing the
GeoNetwork implementation in Australia.

I can't answer the question about 'different is the Australian Profile from
ISO 19115 19139' but I agree that if we all invest a little we can achieve a
lot - as long as we don't all spend our resources doing the same "little
bit'.

 


>   
> Further we see GeoNetwork operating at two slightly different 
> levels.  The first is the ASDD level and the second is at the 
> enterprise or agency level - two slightly different functions. 
>   
> The challenge is trying to coordinate and prioritise these 
> development needs and also work with the open source community and 
> other GeoNetwork developers to reduce duplication of effort.  OSDM 
> has held a couple of 'GeoNetwork' meetings with the broader 
> community and would like to continue to play a role in coordination 
> of this activity, assuming the broader community agreed with this. 
>   
> From a simplistic view point what I feel is required is a set of 
> development requirements to be established to meet both short and 
> longer term needs covering for ANZLIC, SISS and other users needs 
> and a mechanism to effectively coordinate the implementation of 
> these requirements by the relevant stakeholders together with a 
> mechanism to link this to the FAO efforts. 



The problem is in assessing the requirements. Putting on my Architect's hat
and 
looking at the list of requirements from last September's workshop, I'd cull
a number 
of the requirements from GeoNetwork development. I don't believe they belong
in 
the product. 

 


I'd like to know, for instance, what each of the teams actively working on
GeoNetwork are actually doing right now and what their forward program
includes. I'm not technically literate enough to want to see detailed
specification - headline titles will do me - but it will give us all an idea
of those areas of potential collaboration and or duplication.

However, from an Australian / ANZLIC / SISS perspective we need to agree on
the 
evaluation criteria. 

This is also where having a member of the GeoNetwork Project Steering
Committee helping 
us to make the cull makes sense. 

We can decide to push forward with feature X, but the GeoNetwork PSC may not
want it in 
the product. 

We also need to work closely with the PSC when trying to work out strategic
future 
directions? If we don't, we're wasting everyone's time. 

Couldn't agree more

>   
> OSDM is willing to play a community liaison role to help coordinate 
> these requirements and provide an interface to the developers, 
> especially SISS. 
>   
> As a starting point OSDM would like to capture a list of user needs 
> and development requirements.  If you see the value in this, perhaps
> you can start to either document your needs/requirements or send us 
> any requirements or specification that you already have.  OSDM can 
> collate these to 'discover' any overlap or duplication. 
>   
> The results of this 'collation' of requirements can them be fed back
> to the developer and user communities with a view to maximising the 
> benefit for all. 
>   


OSDM has been doing a good job of coordinating the various Government parties
to date. 

The GeoNetwork workshop that I attended last September was most useful and
was a credit 
to Ben and Jenny for organising. 


I'll follow up on some specific suggestions off line. 




> If all this comes together it might be a good starting point for the
> Annual Workshop as discussed below. 
>   
>   
> I look forward to your comments on this.   
>   
>   
> John Weaver 
> Manager, Office of Spatial Data Management 
> Geoscience Australia 
>   
> Post: GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601 
> Ph 6249 9590 
> Email: john.weaver at osdm.gov.au 
>   
> Web: www.osdm.gov.au 
>   
> -----Original Message-----
> From: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:aust-nz-bounces at lists.
> osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bruce.Bannerman at dpi.vic.gov.au
> Sent: Wednesday, 16 July 2008 4:58 PM
> To: Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: [Aust-NZ] GeoNetwork Annual Workshop 
>   
> 
> IMO: 
> 
> 
> Ben, 
> 
> 
> Perhaps, once we have an idea where we are going with GeoNetwork and
> the ANZLIC Profile we could look at hosting the GeoNetwork Annual 
> Workshop in Australia? 
> 
> Bruce 
> 
> 
> > > <fron Jeroen>
> > > An annual workshop has been held every year, and such an event is the  
> > > place to discuss f2f the strategy for the coming years. Simon Pigot  
> > > and Kate Roberts attended that last year. For this year I am still not

> > > sure how to organize it. I have to get some organization behind the  
> > > project to sponsor the event. Maybe FAO will do this, maybe there are  
> > > others.
> > > 
> > > On getting your priorities well covered in the project, I think that  
> > > there are no big issues. The project needs to take some steps to allow

> > > for (a) plugable application profiles (b) plugable translation  
> > > packages (not to much of an issue for you :-) ) and (c) plugable skins/

> > > themes. All of these have been discussed and are in the process of  
> > > taking shape in a proposal. Some of the work is funded, some is  
> > > underfunded and some is not funded at all.
> > > 
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