SIF Meeting, 18-October-2013

Convened: 13:30 - 15:00 UTC

Attending: Steve Browdy (SB), David Arctur (DA), Siri Jodha Khalsa (SJ), William Sonntag (WS), Osamu Ochiai (OO, Geosec), Joan Maso (JM), Paul Eglitis (PE), Robert Huber (RH, COOPEUS)

Recording: DA

Previous meeting notes: SifMeeting-2013-10-04

Agenda and Discussion

• COOPEUS participation in GEOSS
  • SJ: RH (COOPEUS) has done survey of standards in current use; will be registering standards in SIR (http://www.coopeus.eu/fields-of-research/cross-cutting/)
  • RH: COOPEUS intending to make use of GEOSS registry for communication of standards info among members. Heterogeneous infrastructures; not many standards to register at first. Metadata & data standards to be discussed during upcoming workshop. Biodiversity, physics, ocean, carbon, atmospheric infrastructures, etc.
  • SB: [ ACTION ] GEOSS SIR registration page may not be working right now; will fix and let SIF & RH know.
  • SB: intending to use API for access to SIR or CSR? (RH: whichever makes most sense). The registration process is not exposed through an API, but this is in development.
  • RH: mainly need API access to metadata, both for standards as well as for services.
  • SB: there is a way to get a dump of SIR and of data resources contributed to GEOSS; can get into more details when ready.
  • RH: does GEOSS have REST interface to metadata? SB: standards via Z39.50; for broker via OpenSearch, CSW, OAI/PMH, etc.
  • SJ: Barb Ryan (Geosec) and some members of IIB have expressed need for this activity
  • OO: COOPEUS is a good example and test case for using CSR & SIR; Geosec wants to make sure these registries are made available to GEOSS partners. What's best way to expose these (API, REST, etc)? SB: these registries aren't mainly for use by public, but by GCI. GEO Web Portal & DAB should be main points of access. Tutorials should explain how data providers register services and data with GEOSS.
  • SJ: we have 2 use cases now: COOPEUS and RDA, who could build portals on top of GEOSS registries.
  • SB: if this suite of registries would benefit from general public to access, SIF could consider how to expose these.
  • DA: SIF could use help writing tutorials; SB: SIF coordinates writing of tutorials
  • PE: Rather than "public" I think it is other projects globally who are interested in resources from where they can access a reference list for standards in a particular are ... be it EO metadata, soa , etc ... this is even bigger than GEOSS. The alternative is users have to go to individual SDOs, there are few cross-discipline registeries. GEOSS is an example (as a by product of aiming at other goals).
  • SB: Another example is Eye on Earth, for using GEOSS standards registry.
• 2013 interoperability topics (results in whitepapers) - important to set deadlines for completing these by end of year
  • GEOLabel update (JM) - API for generating labels. SB: white paper, tutorial for using - status? JM: tutorial exists, not in SIF format, can convert to BP wiki. JM: [ ACTION ] Nov 15 for white paper. SB: start by creating wiki page, not Word doc. By Nov 15, should have content largely done in twiki; enables easier collaboration.
  • Discuss work and timeline for registration alternatives (SB) - see twiki page SifResourceRegistration - [ ACTION ] Nov 1 - SB will add content to this twiki discussion for white paper development. After Nov 15, will see what's needed.
  • Discuss work and timeline for linked data (SB) - we have a twiki page but no content yet. Difficult topic so far: how does/will this apply to GEOSS? Metadata; data; semantics; what makes sense to consider?
  • WS: when thinking about this, think about discovery. Mechanics are known (triple store, etc); GEOSS could facilitate access to components and mechanisms.
  • SB: given GEOSS has DAB for discovery mechanism, is that enough? Is linked open data sufficient to handle resource registration?
  • WS: won't guess on that.
  • DA: AIP-6 Water SBA implementing a form of linked data, by providing access to data service (REST URLs) through data provider's portals
  • WS: another case is the use of permanent identifiers that are web accessible, whether brokered or other mechanism to collect the identifier info. Relevant to climate science, providing identifiers and links to data sets that are not starting with the GCI
  • SJ: it would be missed opportunity if GEOSS did not take advantage of linked open data mechanisms.
  • WS: see recent email from National Information Standards Org (NISO) seeking input on linked open data.
  • PE: Not an expert on this, but can Linked Open Data also be useful in the aggregation of data in its exploitation, in real-time monitoring and combined information propagation and not just for discovery of related datasets? GEOSS could exploit the links for more than just discovery. (yes)
  • WS: would like to work further on this, with help from European side.
  • SB: linked open data is not necessarily another component needed in GCI, but could be seen as expansion of role of GCI broker framework.
  • SJ: DAB semantics capability is limited
  • JM: http://lod-cloud.net/; is there any GEOSS dataset here: http://datahub.io/group/lodcloud?q=&sort=name+asc
  • JM: linked open data works best with vector data; not as much used with raster/gridded data
  • OO: some vector dtaa - ISCGM one of GEO POs: http://www.iscgm.org/cgi-bin/fswiki/wiki.cgi
  • WS: there are strong initiatives toward RDF expressions among Data.gov / RDA
  • JM: see also http://datahub.io/dataset/data-gov, and http://datahub.io/dataset/eea SB: EEA using linked data in reporting; WS: EEA SENSE program
  • PE: Note: The LOD cloud has not been updated since 2011/09 ... so we have to search for latest infos carefully
  • SB: stop for now; let's continue on SIF twiki page
  • WS: yes, and need an outline or mind map to help organize thinking on this subject (will contribute). Also working to bring statistical community into this for environmental sustainability. Want to link between the geosciences & operations platforms and how these support statistical analysis & policy formation.

• GEOSS Tutorials
  • Review those that need attention: (1) Resource registration; (2) data sharing (SB); (3) data access (depends on new GWP)
  • new CSR is public; new GEO Web Portal not public, but coming soon (beta avail now)
  • SB: [ ACTION ] will ask SIF for help to work on these
  • Decide on work schedule

• Any other business

Next meeting date: 01 November 2013

(NOTE: EU Summer Time ends Sunday 27-Oct; US DST ends Sunday 3-Nov; will switch meeting time to 14:30 UTC for SIF meeting starting 8 Nov)

-- DavidArctur - 18 Oct 2013