1. Ted Habermann – NOAA GEO-Integrated Data Environment (IDE)

2. What is the OGC? The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc (OGC) is an international industry consortium of 387 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface standards. OpenGIS® Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo- enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. From http://www.opengeospatial.com

3. Principal Members have complete authority over the specification release and adoption process through the Planning Committee (PC). It is by PC vote that Specifications are approved and released. PC Members participate in planning and management of the Consortium's technology development process, evaluate and provide guidance on market direction and Consortium focus, possess Technical Committee voting rights, have approval authority for OGC policies and procedures, and vote to elect members of the OGC Board of Directors Membership Technical Committee Members participate and vote in the OGC Technical Committee (TC). TC members may submit draft standards for consideration by the membership. The TC is charged to define, document, approve, and maintain OGC standards that enable interoperability of geospatial data and services. TC members may represent their organizations in any working groups or subcommittees of the TC, and may sponsor and/or participate in OGC Interoperability Initiatives. Principal Members have complete authority over the specification release and adoption process through the Planning Committee (PC). It is by PC vote that Specifications are approved and released. PC Members participate in planning and management of the Consortium's technology development process, evaluate and provide guidance on market direction and Consortium focus, possess Technical Committee voting rights, have approval authority for OGC policies and procedures, and vote to elect members of the OGC Board of Directors

4. An OGC standard is a document, established by consensus and approved by the OGC Membership, that describe rules, guidelines or characteristics for interfaces and encodings aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of interoperability. Standards Recently OGC has been working to absorb community standards (KML, netCDF, WaterML) and help facilitate adoption processes. An OGC standard is a document, established by consensus and approved by the OGC Membership, that describe rules, guidelines or characteristics for interfaces and encodings aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of interoperability. The standards empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Adoption of OGC Standards varies with the standard and the community. The standards empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications.

5. Standards Working Groups Standards Working Groups (SWG) have specific charter of working on a candidate standard prior to approval as an OGC standard or on making revisions to an existing OGC standard. Catalogue Services 3.0 SWG (Cat 3.0 SWG) Doug Nebert, US Geological Survey (USGS) ebXML RegRep SWG (ebXMLRegRepSWG) Frédéric Houbie, ERDAS, Inc. GML 3.3 SWG (GML 3.3 SWG) Clemens Portele, interactive instruments GmbH netCDF SWGBen Domenico, Unidata O&M 2.0 SWG (OM 2.0 SWG) Simon Cox, Joint Research Centre (JRC) OWS Common 1.2 SWG (OWSCommon1.2SWG) James Greenwood, SeiCorp, Inc. SensorML 2.0 SWG (SensorML2.0SWG) Mike Botts, University of Alabama Huntsville Sensor Obs. Service (SOS) 2.0 SWG (SOS SWG) Arne Broering, 52° North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH SWE Common SWG (SWECommonSWG) Alexandre Robin, Spot Image WCS 2.0 SWG (WCS 2.0 SWG) Steven Keens, PCI Geomatics Inc. Web Mapping Service 1.4 SWG (WMS 1.4 SWG) Satish Sankaran, ESRI Web Processing Service 2.0 SWG (WPS 2.0 SWG) Bastian Schäffer, University of Muenster - Institute for Geoinformatics WFS Gazetteer Profile 1.0 SWG (WFSgaz1.0 SWG) Doug Nebert, US Geological Survey (USGS) Standards Working Groups (SWG) have specific charter of working on a candidate standard prior to approval as an OGC standard or on making revisions to an existing OGC standard.

6. Domain Working Groups (DWG) Domain Working Groups (DWG or WG) provide a forum for discussion of key interoperability requirements and issues, discussion and review of implementation specifications, and presentations on key technology areas relevant to solving geospatial interoperability issues. Catalog WG (Cat WG) Doug Nebert, US Geological Survey (USGS) Coverages WG (Cover WG) Peter Baumann, FORWISS (Bavarian Research Centre for Knowledge-Based Systems) Data Preservation WG (PreservWG) Steve Morris, North Carolina State University Data Quality WG (DQ WG) Victor Minor, Blue Marble Geographics Earth Systems Science DWG (ESS WG) Phillip Dibner, Ecosystem Research Hydrology DWG (Hydrology DWG) David Lemon, CSIRO Metadata WG (Metadat WG) David Danko, ESRI Meteorology DWG (Meteo DWG) Chris Little, UK Met Office Sensor Web Enablement WG (SensorWeb) Mike Botts, University of Alabama in Huntsville University WG (Univ WG) Chris Higgins, Open Grid Forum Web Feature Service WG (WFS WG) Martin Daly, cadcorp (Comp. Aided Dev. Corp.) Ltd. Domain Working Groups (DWG or WG) provide a forum for discussion of key interoperability requirements and issues, discussion and review of implementation specifications, and presentations on key technology areas relevant to solving geospatial interoperability issues.

7. Other Documents Best Practices Documents contain discussion of best practices related to the use and/or implementation of an adopted OGC standard and for release to the public. Best Practices Documents are an official position of the OGC and thus represent an OGC Member endorsement of the content. Discussion Papers (DP) provide discussion of some technology or standards development activity in the OGC approved for release to the public. Discussion Papers are not the official position of the OGC and contain a statement to that effect. Public Engineering Reports (ER) are documents that report on some technical activity in an OGC Interoperability Program Initiative. A public ER is an ER that the OGC Members have approved for public release. An ER is not an official position of the OGC.

8. Initiatives The Oceans Science Interoperability Experiment will consolidate a portion of the Ocean-Observing community on its understanding of various OGC specifications, solidify demonstrations for Ocean Science application areas, harden software implementations, and produce a candidate OGC Best Practices document that can be used to inform the broader ocean-observing community. The OGC "Geo-interface for Atmosphere, Land, Earth, and Ocean netCDF" (GALEON) Interoperability Experiment supports open access to atmospheric and oceanographic modeling and simulation outputs. The GALEON IE will implement a geo-interface to netCDF datasets via the OpenGIS(R) Web Coverage Server (WCS 1.0) protocol specification. The interface will provide interoperability among netCDF, OPeNDAP, ADDE, and THREDDS client/server and catalog protocols. The IE may generate change requests to the WCS and other OpenGIS specifications.

9. Using - Doing - Participating? Using: 1. to employ for some purpose; put into service 2. to avail oneself of; apply to one's own purposes Doing: 1. to perform (an act, duty, role, etc.) 2. to execute (a piece or amount of work) 3. to accomplish; finish; complete Participating: 1. To take part in something 2. To share in something

10. ted.habermann@noaa.gov