Awash in data

The ESRI PUG (Petroleum User Group) meeting is wrapping up this afternoon in Houston, and I am coming away with a few themes that were prominent.

One is that we are awash in data, but there are huge challenges in discovering, accessing, and retrieving that data.

Another topic that was pushed hard by ESRI's development-meister Clint Brown, is that the Web and online services is the future for GIS.

And third, the is strong consensus on what I call interoperability although that term was not specifically heard that much. But the challenges of dealing with vast arrays of data, using online resources and tools stated above, are addressed by the broad concept of interoperability and all the 'stuff' that makes that happen.

PUG group calls for petroleum metadata standards

There seems to be agreement in the petroleum industry to establish common metadata standards and applications for discovery and retrieval of digital information. The goal is to support both proprietary data and exchange of data between companies.

The Metadata Working Group forum this morning at the ESRI Petroluem User Group (PUG) annual meeting in Houston proposed a metadata foundation based on ISO 19115 for the North American Profile (NAP) with a newly developed Energy Industry Profile. Secondly, the group recommended that the not-for-profit standards consortium, Energistics, serve as custodian to maintain and support the metadata infrastructure.

The presenters/proposers included:

Lisa Derenthal, Gimmal Group

Scott Hills, Chevron

Robert Graham, BHP Billiton Petroleum

Alan Doniger, Energistics

with additional input from Grant Tucker, Shell.

Scott made the point that the metadata is for all information, not just geospatial, to promote the concept that geospatial data are an integral component of the data environment and not something separate. Also, the metadata proposal here is much broader than just the PUG.

Grant showed the ISO Metadata Wizard data entry software/form developed by Shell to facilitate collection of metadata internally.

The audience was fully in support of the metadata proposal outlined today. The organizers met afterwards to lay out a 12-14 month timeline for a position paper, and developing a robust plan to bring to industry. Participants are expected to be energy companies and industry vendors.

Scott sees GeoSciML serving as the data exchange standard to create an end-to-end process for data discovery, access, and exchange.

Fixing geospatial political babel

The Coalition of Geospatial Organizations (COGO) made what may sounds like an obscure bureaucratic proposal recently, but one that could have profound impact on the nation’s geospatial infrastructure. They recommended that Congress include ‘geospatial’ in the name and mission of an existing subcommittee in both the House and Senate to oversee geospatial data and activities.

Currently, responsibility for oversight and authorization of Federal geospatial activities is spread among 30 House and Senate committees and subcommittees. That means there is no consistent national policy and in fact, with geospatial duties scattered among 40 Federal agencies and critical business lines run by the Office of Management and Budget, the plethora of Congressional bodies may create numerous “national policies.” It reminds me of the famous parable about 30 blindmen describing an elephant by each one feeling one part of the massive animal. Each had a completely different interpretation of what it was.

COGO is a coalition of 15 national professional societies, trade associations, and membership organizations representing over 30,000 professionals in the geospatial field [member logos above].

They note that the U.S. government doesn’t even know how much it spends on geospatial information. The last estimate, in 1993, was over $4 billion. That strikes me as ridiculously small for what must be going on today.

The COGO proposal is a sensible proposal that could have explosive ramifications by facilitating a truly national imperative for dealing with geospatial data.

Digital Mapping Techniques workshop scheduled

Plans for the 13th annual Workshop on Digital Mapping Techniques (DMT ’09) were released today. The event is co-sponsored by USGS and the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) and focuses on geologic mapping issues. DMT ’09 is hosted by the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey in Morgantown, WV, May 10-13, 2009. More info is at http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Info/dmt for the moment. A dedicated Web site should be up next month.

ScienceDirect feed for computers in geology

There is an easy way to get feeds from ScienceDirect of new publications in a variety of Earth science fields including on the topic of Computers in Earth Science. Chris at Highly Allochthonous posted a set of direct links or you log in with a personal Sciendirect registration, click on 'Alerts' in the main navigation bar, and choose the 'topic alerts' option. Chris listed feeds for GSA publications and others followed with comments on feeds from AGU and other publishers.

Here is the shortcut for the Computers in Earth Science feed:

http://rss.sciencedirect.com/getMessage?registrationId=IJIGIKIGJPIHQJJHKJINIOJMJOJPIKPKOBKOLRROOW

U.S. IT leadership materially eroded

A new study released by the National Research Council warns that the U.S. "position of leadership [in IT] is not a birthright, and it is now under pressure."

The pre-release of "Assessing the Impacts of Changes in the Information Technology R&D Ecosystem: Retaining Leadership in an Increasingly Global Environment," concludes that,
"the U.S. position in IT leadership today has materially eroded compared with that of prior decades, and the nation risks ceding IT leadership to other nations within a generation unless the United States recommits itself to providing the resources needed to fuel U.S. IT innovation, to removing important roadblocks that reduce the ecosystem’s effectiveness in generating innovation and the fruits of innovation, and to becoming a lead innovator and user of IT."

Their findings and recommendations fall into four broad areas:

• Objective 1. Strengthen the effectiveness and impact of federally funded information technology research.
• Objective 2. Remain the strongest generator of and magnet for technical talent.
• Objective 3. Reduce friction that harms the effectiveness of the U.S. information technologyR&D ecosystem, while maintaining other important political and economic objectives.
• Objective 4. Ensure that the United States has the infrastructure for communications, computing, applications, and services that enables U.S. information technology users and innovators to lead the world.

I need to read this whole study in detail, but on first pass, the conclusions are not a surprise and the goals seem evident. The challenge, as usual, is getting there.

National GIS proposed

Jack Dangermond, head of ESRI, is circulating a $1.2 billion proposal to build a National GIS, as part of the recovery and reinvestment plans in Congress.

The proposal is gaining support from state GIS/GIO's around the country, despite some early concerns that the proposal hasn't been fully discussed in the community and the implications aren't fully known. But the sense is that the proposal is gaining traction.

There's been a push in the past couple of weeks to try to get the Western Governor's Association to formally endorse it.

There's some brief excerpts from the proposal at the GIS User blog.