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USGIF and OGC are committed to organizing a conference focused on place-based policy. However, after discussions with several of our respective members and sponsors, we have decided that the community would be better served if this event were rescheduled.
I know I was confused regarding the name, timing and other issues.
- OGC/USGIF statement on OGC website
Yesterday, the OGC launched their Business Value Survey. Any and all geospatial technology users and providers are invited to complete a survey on the value of OGC standards.
The impetus for this survey came from the OGC Business Value Committee that has been tasked with three primary goals:
The researchers have prepared two versions of the online survey. To take the survey, if you are a technology user, visit http://uncc.surveyshare.com/s/AQAIJDC.
If you are a technology provider (a vendor or a system integrator) or a consultant, visit http://uncc.surveyshare.com/s/AQAIZBC.
From the OGC announcement today: The survey is a joint effort by two academic researchers who are OGC members and by the OGC Business Value Committee. Dr. Mu Xia at Santa Clara University and Dr. Kexin Zhao at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte developed the survey based on requirements from the OGC Business Value Committee to support their studies on standards effectiveness. The OGC Business Value Committee will use a summary of the results to help the OGC better understand the value of the OGC’s open standards and improve its programs for geospatial standards development, compliance testing and outreach.
Please support the OGC's efforts in this matter.
I was at one time the editor of OGC News, so it's sad to see its last issue. On the other hand, I'm pleased more timely info, from more contributors lies ahead on the new blog.
This will be our last quarterly OGC Newsletter , because the newsletter format constrains us in our effort to keep our community informed. To do a better of job of 1) getting our news and views out more quickly to more people and 2) getting more people to contribute their news and views, today we are launching The OGC Blog [http://www.opengeospatial.org/blog] – a blog about spatial communication.
The OGC Blog will include regular contributions by staff as well as frequent posts by members of the broad and continually expanding OGC community, some of whom are NOT OGC members! We will offer newsfeeds and daily or weekly email updates to serve a range of news consumer preferences. All the types of content we've been publishing in the newsletter will be available on the blog, but the news will be more timely and there will be more opportunity for reader commentary, more links to relevant content out on the Web, and more opportunities for OGC members to communicate with each other and the world.
- OGC News (last issue!)
Standards adoption is not a sexy topic. Sure, interoperability cures a lot of ills but really, isn't interoperability just too big of a word? I actually saw it on a billboard once and wondered just how many people understood exactly what it meant.
But that's the business of the Open Geospatial Consortium. I sat down for a long conversation with Steven Ramage the director of communications for the OGC. Let's review some of the recent initiatives that the OGC has built. The GovFuture initiative kicks off a program to get small municipalities involved with the standards organization. It's a lower cost entry fee model to encourage interoperability standards adoption and to get them involved with the OGC specification process. Watch our webinar with the OGC that goes into greater depth on this program. The Business Value Working Group is tasked with demonstrating the return on investment by standards adoption. The relationship with the Building Smart Alliance is driven by the increased recognition that 3D building models and the interior space therein is inherently geospatial. As such the two standards organizations are working together to make sure there is a synergistic approach to specification cooperation.
Likewise, the OGC has been making a huge impact in operations management. Take the recently announced pilot project in aviation safety. The OGC is involved in a project whereby the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) is working with industry stakeholders to utilize international standards to improve the awareness of Special Activity Airspace (SAA) usage, that airspace used for military missions. Both Lufthansa and Boeing as well as others are engaged in the project. The pilot is part of the OGC's interoperability initiatives. Information release by the OGC indicates that "SAA dissemination involves the access, filtering and graphical portrayal of airspace information, as well as the ability for subscribed users to receive notifications of SAA updates and reservation schedule changes."
The organization is making great strides at outreach while not taking its foot off the gas pedal in driving technical specifications for sensors, SMS, and many other initiatives. You need to be aware of their activities. Here are some links that are useful:
The Indiana University’s University Information Technology Services received the 2011 Excellence in Geographic Information Systems Award from the
Indiana Geographic Information Council for its Indiana Spatial Data Portal, which has made 20 terabytes of digital data readily available and
accessible. The data is available to those who don't have GIS software and the data are OGC compliant (not sure what that means, actually), per the student paper.
On Friday, a four-person unit will begin working to centralize the city’s GIS capabilities. They will develop an interactive map of the city that will eventually be available for public use....
On March 7, the Columbia City Council [MO] approved the transfer of the four employees to the city’s Public Works Department to form the new GIS office. The staffing of the office is considered budget-neutral; the $134,096 to pay the salaries, travel expenses and benefits plans for the four employees was transferred from other departments.
Murray County Board of Commissioners [MN] added a fee schedule for GIS related business. Requests for printing of maps range from $2.00 to $10.00 depending on size of the map. Some existing map products are available at no cost such as a county map. Fees for staff time, CDs or DVDs will also be charged. Available will be GIS data, address points, and parcels with annual updates.
