GI2012 trakas standards ogc

Open Geospatial Consortium:
Open Standards and
Participatory Process
GI2012-X-Border-OpenDataPolicies-Forum
Dresden, GERMANY, 18./19. May 2012

Athina Trakas
Open Geospatial Consortium
Director European Services
atrakas@opengeospatial.org
http://www.opengeospatial.org

Agenda


A few words about OGC

OGC Programs and Processes

Development of an OGC Standard

Communities and Participation

© 2012 Open Geospatial Consortium

Before we start...

Q: What is the OGC's position on "Open Data"? - http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/faq#11
The OGC embraces open data as well as other models for data
distribution and access. The OGC standards framework must support a
broad range of policy positions on the access to and distribution of
geospatial data, and we are supportive of all models for open access,
licensed data, secure distribution, etc. Policies on access and distribution
of geospatial and other forms of data are constantly in flux. Data sets
restricted for distribution by security and/or pricing / licensing, may be
opened up for free access at another time. Changing market forces and
organizational policies determine the rules for data access and distribution.
Open standards, including those of the OGC, support the full range of
business models, and a common open standards framework is vital to
the overall geospatial data marketplace.


Standards and Interoperability

Availability of geo data is crucial for the administration,
businesses and citizens alike.
But how to share data?
Key factor for accessibility is standardisation. It is the
definition of common interfaces to enable
interoperability.


Interoperability Issues

●
„We can't share maps on the Web.“
●
„We can't deliver data to different
systems easily.“
●
„We don't have a common language
to speak about our geospatial data
or our services.“
●
„We can't find and pull together data
from our automated sensors.“


So what does OGC do?

The Vision
Achieve the full societal, economic and scientific
benefits of integrating location resources into
commercial, institutional and organisational
processes worldwide.

The Mission
To serve as a global forum for
and lead the development, promotion and harmonization of
open and freely available geospatial standards.


What is the OGC?

http://www.youtube.com/ogcvideo

→ more videos on OGC's Youtube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ogcvideo/videos


OGC at a glance
• Founded in 1994, not for profit, consensus based and voluntary
• Over 445+ member organisations (industry, government, academia)
(May 2012) http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/members
• 21 staff members
• 25+ adopted OGC Standards (some are ISO Standards)
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards

• Several hundred software products, implementing OGC Standards
http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/products

• Broad user community worldwide, many policy positions for NSDI
based on OGC standards
• Cooperation with other standards organisations and
foundations, ISO/TC 211, OSGeo, W3C, OASIS and others
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/alliancepartners


OGC at a glance

Africa (5)
Asia Pacific (63)
Europe (207)
Middle East (8)
North America (165)
South America (1)


Central and East European OGC Members
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/members/report/?sortby=%27country%27
Germany (→ 51 members)
Austria (8)
Czech Republic (2)
• AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
• HELP SERVICE - REMOTE SENSING spol
• City of Vienna s.r.o.
• EOX IT Services GmbH • Masaryk University
• Frequentis AG
• Salzburg University Greece (2)
• Technical University of Vienna, Institut • Ktimatologio SA
Geoinformation • Nat'l & Kapodistrian University Athens
• United Nations Geographic Information
Working Group (GIWG) Hungary (1)
• Wikitude GmbH • Károly Róbert Föiskola

Bulgaria (1) Poland (1)
• URSIT Ltd. • Polish Association for Spatial Information
(PASI)
Croatia (1)
• Državna geodetska uprava (State Romania (1)
Geodetic Admin, Croatia) • National Meteorological Administration

Serbia (1)
• University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical
Sciences © 2012 Open Geospatial Consortium

Cross-Boundary Information Sharing

Continues to be one of our biggest challenges!
Source:
http://www.ign-sn.de/GI2012/GI2012-OpenDataPolicies-FINAL-Programme-WEB.pdf

Source:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Blaues_Wunder_Hochwasser_2002.JPG

The ability to access, fuse and
apply diverse data sources is
critical to situational awareness

Improving Knowledge Sharing and Transfer
We are addressing critical issues, that need
cooperation:
●
Growth in urban centers and coastal areas
●
Climate Change, Environmental
Monitoring
●
Water Resource
availability and quality
●
Emergency planning,
preparedness & response
●
Aviation Safety
...and many more http://www.ogcnetwork.net/pub/ogcnetwork/GEOSS/AIP3/index.html


Standards Development is not easy!

→ Requires understanding of differences
→ Requires cooperation on a global basis
→ Requires consensus by many organizations
→ Requires give and take
→ Requires certified, repeatable process

… and does not exist in isolation
Alliance Partners: Critical Resource for Advancing Standards

… and others
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/alliancepartners

What is an OGC Standard?
• A document, established by consensus, approved by the
OGC membership (balance of interest, all members have an equal vote)
• Provides, rules, guidelines or characteristics
• Implementable in software
• Open standards does not mean open source software (Free
Software). OGC/OSGeo Paper on Open Source Software and Open
Standards: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Open_Source_and_Open_Standards

• OGC standards are „People want the government
Open Standards to be transparent, so why
– Freely and publicly available shouldn't the technology be?”
– No license fees Jim Willis, Director of e-Government at
– Vendor neutral theRhode Island Secretary of State
Office

Why Open Standards?

●
Prevents a single, self-interested party from
controlling a standard
„What OGC brings to
• Lower systems and life the table is…everyone
has confidence we
cycle costs won’t take advantage of
the format or change it
• Encourage market competition in a way that will harm
– Choose based on functionality anyone”
desired Michael Weiss-Malik,
– Avoid “lock in” to a proprietary Google KML product
architecture manager

• Stimulates innovation beyond the standard by
companies that seek to differentiate themselves.
Source: Open Standards, Open Source, and Open Innovation: Harnessing the Benefits of
Openness, April 2006. Committee For Economic Development. www.ced.org

Standards are like
parachutes:
they work best
when they're open.
Mary Mc Rae, OASIS*

* “Minds, like parachutes, function better when open, but, like fists,
they strike harder when closed.” — L.E. Modesitt, Jr., American Author (1943 -- )

How does OGC work?
Programs and Processes

How does OGC work?
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects

• Consensus process – that is reflecting a
common understanding of requirements
and a membership driven process.
• Formalised standards development
process – based on commonly agreed,
structured and well defined policies and
processes (→ Standards Program
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/programs/spec).


How does OGC work?

process – based on commonly agreed, Standards
structured and well defined policies and Setting


OGC Activities Driven by Community Needs
Education & Research Sustainable Development

Defence
Health

E -Government
Emergency Services,
Disaster Management

Energy
Consumer Services,
Geosciences:
Real Time
land, sea, air information
Information


… lead to Domain Working Groups
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/wg

...provide a
forum for
discussion of
key inter-
operability
requirements
and issues
(...)

… and Standards Working Groups
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/swg

... work on
candidate
OGC
standards
prior to
approval,
make
revisions to
existing OGC
standard.

How is a standard developed?

→ Submitted by a TC Voting Member with a minimum of two
other OGC Member organizations supporting the
submission.
→ An email to TC Chair (Carl Reed) stating the intent to
submit.
→ The document package (cover letter, document in OGC
document template format etc) are sent to Carl Reed and
posted to pending documents.
→ At this point, the process may vary depending on which
path through the approval process the submission team
wishes to use.


Major OGC Standards
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards

Some examples Web Feature
Server
Web Coverage
Server

• Web Map Servers (WMS)
• Web Feature Servers (WFS)
• Web Coverage Servers (WCS) Web Map
Server

With OGC web services, a user can dynamically
access that data, directly from the authoritative data
source, using a variety of tools.

As well as the: OGC
• KML (formerly Keyhole Markup Language)
• Web Map Context (WMC)
• Geography Markup Language (GML)

Just as http:// is the dial tone of the World Wide Web,
and html / xml are the standard encodings, the
geospatial web is enabled by OGC standards:

OGC's
Interoperability Program

30

How does OGC work?

process – based on commonly agreed, Standards
structured and well defined policies and Setting

• Making use of innovative processes – for
testing, verifying and documenting user Rapid Interface
Development
requirements (→ Interoperability Program
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/programs/ip).


The OGC and its Interoperability Program

→ OGC Interoperability Program Introduction

→ more videos on OGC's YouTube Channel:


IP - Emphasis on Testing and Validation

Testbeds, Pilots and Experiments Over 50 initiatives
Participants work with sponsors to define and/or refine have been
standards to solve a given interoperability problem. successfully
completed since 1999.
–
Joint actions by technology providers and
users Most OGC standards
are advanced through
–
Driven by user community scenarios
this process.
–
Produce:
→ Tested and validated draft standards
→ Industry technology implementations
→ Architectural recommendations
→ Live demonstrations to validate utility of
standards in user context

OGC staff manages the entire
process with policies and procedures
proven to produce results.

Understanding OGC standards – the ORM*
OGC Reference Model www.opengeospatial.org/standards/orm

• What is the purpose of the ORM?
– Overview of OGC Standards Baseline
– Insight into the current state of the work of the OGC
– Basis for coordination and understanding of the OGC documents
– Resource for defining architectures for specific applications

• In Spanish
– http://external.opengeospatial.org/twiki_public/ILAFpublic/QueEsOpenGeospatial

* Do not confuse with the ORM in Walter Moers
“The City of Dreaming Books”.

Development of an
OGC Standard

How is an OGC standard developed?
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/process

→ Issue / problem



→ Issue / problem

→ Tell the relevant working group
→ Send email to the TC-mailing list
→ Talk to OGC members and/or staff
Communicate!


Positive Feedback / Interest

Initiate an Interoperability Start a Domain Working
Program initiative: Group (DWG):
●
Special pre-requirements ●
Special pre-requirements
needed needed (a certain number of
OGC member, email to the
●
Results: e.g. an Engineering Technical Committee etc.)
Report
●
Results: charter, mailing list,
●
With enough interest / Wiki, timeframe (e.g. for
support by OGC members, teleconferences, meetings,
development of an working expected results etc.)
group



Results achieved in the DWG/SWG may be:
●
A Discussion Paper or a Candidate Standard document is being developed
●
It will be reviewed by the OGC Architecture Board (OAB) and the Technical
Committee (TC).

→ Once an OGC document is published (by vote of the SWG),
everyone who is interested can comment on it within a given
period of time (usually 30d ays):
●
Requests to the document need to be answered by the relevant SWG
●
Changes and comments need to be included (SWG works the comments)
●
SWG votes to release to the TC for an adoption vote, vote happens
→ New approved standard published


Role of the OGC and OGC staff

●
Community forum
●
Comprehensive communications infrastructure
●
An agreed upon consensus process for defining, testing,
documenting and approving standards
●
Support the process formally, has the overview of the
“standards- family” and relevant activities in other
organisations (alliance partners)
●
Staff knowledge, expertise and support to work with the
members to facilitate the consensus process that leads to
approved and adopted standards


And what more?

Everyone can always bring in a Change Requestion to
and existing standards.
http://portal.opengeospatial.org/public_ogc/change_request.php

OGC Members meet 4x a year during the OGC
Technical Committee meetings.
http://www.opengeospatial.org/event

Save the Date!
Next European OGC TC Meeting
18. - 22. June 2012 in Exeter, UK
hosted by the UK MetOffice
http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1206tc
http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1206tcagenda

Communities using OGC standards examples (1)

• Public Administration
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/join/levels#associate
– Shibboleth Interoperability
Experiment
– Is built on ESDIN best practice
– www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/shibbolethie
General example: GeoPortal.RLP –
http:://www.geoportal.rlp.de

• Emergency & Disaster Management
• Hydrology
– Two current Interoperability Experiments
– http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/gwie
– http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/swie

• Aviation Community General example:
Tasmanian Hydrological
Sensor Web Project
(source: CSIRO - http://www.csiro.au)

Communities using OGC standards examples (2)

General example: GALEON IE: Geo-interface
to Atmosphere, Land, Earth, Ocean, NetCDF
• Meteorology and Oceans Science http://www.ogcnetwork.net/galeon

– Workshops on the use of OGC standards in
Meteorology
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/conference/gis_ogc_3/
– Activities around cross-domain modelling:
harmonised data model for meteorology
– Activities around INSPIRE in Thematic
Working Groups
http://external.opengeospatial.org/twiki_public/bin/view/MetOceanDWG/WebHome

• Geoscience
– OneGeology / OneGeology Europe
– GeoSciML
• Defense and Intelligence
General example: OneGeology
http://www.onegeology.org

Avenues for Public Input

• General Requests (for Information,
for Comment, for Participation)
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests
• OGC Network
http://www.ogcnetwork.net/

• Change Requests and New Requirements
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/cr
http://portal.opengeospatial.org/public_ogc/change_request.php
• Fast track process
http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/newsletters/201006/#C3


Avenues for Public Input (2)

• Public Domain Working Groups
– Aviation DWG
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/aviationdwg
– Hydrology DWG
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/hydrologydwg
– Meteorology and Oceans DWG
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/meteodwg

• Business Value Committee
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/businessvalue
https://lists.opengeospatial.org/mailman/listinfo/business.value
– Understand and articulate the advantages of developing and using OGC
standards
– Enable the wider community of stakeholders to leverage business value as a
tool to foster investment and implementation


Closing thoughts...

→ Contribute, cooperate – and avoid „consuming
attitude“

→ Don't re-invent the wheel: benefit from other's
experiences – share your own!

„The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job
of thinking“ (John Kenneth Galbraith, economist)


Thank you!
Any Questions?

Athina Trakas
Director European Service
OpenGeospatial Consortium, Inc.
Heerstr. 162
53111 Bonn
Tel.: +49 – 228 – 54 88 99 42
Mobil: +49 – 173 – 211 2623

OGC ® eMail: atrakas@opengeospatial.org
web: http://www.opengeospatial.org
Copyright © 2011, Open Geospatial Consortium Making location count...

Some last thoughts...

“Interoperability seems to be about the
integration of information. What it’s really
about is the coordination of organizational
behavior.”

David Schell
Chairman and Founder
OGC


GovFuture - new Membership Level for Local
and Subnational Government
new membership option for local and state/provincial government
agencies
worldwide and for a very small fee (200US$/500US$)
(new membership structure for different regions in the world coming soon)
reflects OGC's increased emphasis on knowledge transfer

→ learn about new developments in geospatial technology
→ benefit from those developments
→ understand and address legal and policy issues
→ liaise with other levels of government

More information at
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/join/levels#associate
and
http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/1322


GI2012 trakas standards ogc

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