agu fall meeting 2007 coordinating communities and building governance in the development of...

AGU Fall Meeting 2007

Coordinating Communities and Building Governance in the development of Schematic and Semantic Standards:

Is this the key to solving Global Earth and Space Science Challenges in the 21st Century?

Lesley Wyborn

Geoscience Australia and AuScope

Motivation: changing focus of our science and an increasing need for cross disciplinary integration at a global scale

From Reductionism

To Greater Integration

Atom

Molecule

Mineral

Rock

Outcrop

Section

Mountain

Continent

Planet

Solar

Source: Office of Integrative Activities NSF


Content(Data, InformationKnowledge)

Tools

Bandwidth

High PerformanceComputing

The Geoinformatics Tetrahedron

Bandwidth

Content: Data, Information, Knowledge

Tools

High PerformanceComputing

Ideal World

Current Reality

the internet is our computer: we need to strike a balance between our available ICT resources


So what really is interoperability ?

Based on http://www.agimo.gov.au/services/interoperability_frameworks>

Ag

reed

Sta

nd

ard

ised

In

terf

ace

Ag

reed

Sta

nd

ard

ised

Inte

rface

Alignment Domain:Machine to Machine

Systems standards

Syntactic standards

Schematic standards

Semantic standards

Institution A Institution B

Internal Processes

Internal Processes

• The size of the community you can interoperate with is at a minimum the size of the community that develops and/or knows about the data transfer standard

• To ensure global scale interoperability, data transfer standards must be developed by international communities


Standardised within

institutions

Silo

Collaborative

Networked

Interoperable between a few

institutions

Global network capability

Personalsilos

Level ofCollaboration

Time

Full potential of Geoinformatics to solve key challenges in earth and space sciences depends on global collaboration

Based on http://www.agimo.gov.au/publications/2006/may/ads/introduction

None

High, Global


The Increasing Complexity of Interoperable Technologies


Integrated Map

Data Content (Ontology, Vocabularies)

Data Structure (GeoSciML, Chemical ML)

Data Language (O&M, SensorML) (GML)

Data Services (WMS, WFS, WCS)

The Interoperability Standards Stack

systems

syntax

schematic

semantic

Map System 2

systems

syntax

schematic

semantic

Map System 1

Technical ISO, OGC

W3C, IEEE, IETF,OGF,

OASIS

Information:Atmospherics

Geology Marine

Geophysics Water

Quakes

Adapted from Brodaric 2007 http://www.nesc.ac.uk/talks/712/EU_brodaric_07Mar07.ppt


«FeatureType»SamplingPoint

+ position: GM_Point

«FeatureTyp...SamplingFeature

«FeatureTyp...Trav erse

«FeatureType»SamplingCurv e

+ length: Measure [0..1]+ shape: GM_Curve

«FeatureType»SamplingSurface

+ area: Measure [0..1]+ shape: GM_Surface

«FeatureTyp...Interv al

«FeatureType»SamplingSolid

+ volume: Measure [0..1]+ shape: GM_Solid

«FeatureTyp...Swath

«FeatureTyp...Section

«FeatureTyp...LidarCloud

«FeatureTyp...Scene

«FeatureTyp...Observ ationWell

«FeatureTyp...Flightline

«FeatureTyp...Station

«FeatureTyp...Trajectory

«FeatureTyp...ShipsTrack

«FeatureType»SpatiallyExtensiveSamplingFeature

«FeatureTyp...Profile

«FeatureTyp...MapSurface

«FeatureTyp...Flitch

Name:Package:Version:Author:

SamplingManifoldpedagogy1.0Simon Cox

Syntactical standards: OGC Sampling Manifolds

A unified way across all sciences to encode the fundamental patterns of the spatial geometry of observations


What is the ISO/OGC/W3C governance equivalent for Semantic and Schematic Standards?

• We need ISO/OGC/W3C compliant, internationally endorsed semantic and schematic transfer models for– Geochemistry − Atmospherics– Geochronology − Heliophysics– Geophysics − Biogeology– Geodesy − Ecology– Seismology − Cryosphere– Hydrogeology − ?????– Marine − ?????– ????? − ?????

• But we need to coordinate the development of the schematic and semantic standards (including ontologies) to avoid a plethora of incompatible data transfer standards and the uncontrolled growth of YAMLS (Yet Another Markup Language)

http://www.datastrategyjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=1


Can existing groups provide governance and coordination for schematic and semantic data transfer standards?

• GeoUnions– IUGS, International Union of Geological Sciences (GeoSciML)– IUGG, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics– IUSS, International Union of Soil Sciences – IGU, International Geographical Union– INQUA, International Union for Quaternary Research– ISPRS International Union for Photogrammetry and Remote

Sensing

• Not in GeoUnions– International Hydrological Association– International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (Chemical ML)

• We need to look higher to ICSU, CODATA, SCID for coordination and governance


The Standards Stack for the GA Geochronology Data Transfer Model: an example of reuse (beg, borrow & steal)

Standard Describes Governance Type

Chemical ML Molecules, atoms, isotopes IUPAC

Inform-

ation

GeoSci ML Earth materials IUGS:CGI

Geography ML Location, time, people OGC & ISO

Technical

Observations & Measurements

Observation patterns and processes

OGC

Sensor ML Sensor and instrument metadata

OGC

If we can leverage Chemical ML for geochemistry, can we leverage physics standards for geophysics, and so on…..?


When will YOU reach the Tipping point and change to machine readability?

• You have too much data (Terabytes and Petabytes cf Astronomy & High Energy Physics)

• You want to go cross disciplinary, ie work on data outside of your own small community

• You are working with sensor networks

• You have to meet legal requirements, eg Sarbanes-Oxley


http://www.seegrid.csiro.au

A Starting Point for Collaboration: SEE Grid TWIKI

• SEE Grid is the Solid Earth & Environmental community web site (includes space people)

• Started in 2003

• 15 communities now

• In 2007 – 48,264 unique visits– 1,170,567 hits– 52.52GB download

• AppSchemas page


The SEE Grid community website aims to enable sharing as per Commandment X

• Thou shalt not reinvent the Wheel, nor the Common Code Table, nor the Commonly Used Procedure nor anything that has already been invented, but shall develop with reusability and sharing in mind

• Alternate wording for Commandment X: Thou shalt covert thy neighbours common Code Table, his Commonly Used Procedure, and anything and everything that has already been invented, and shalt share thine own good stuff too

• That is, the world is changing from data ‘myning’ to data mining

Source - John Flack: Sharing the Wealth: a methodology for Preventing Wheel Re-Invention http://www.swmdi.com/employee/JohnF/presentation


Thank You and Questions?

• Lesley Wyborn– Geoscience Australia– [email protected]– http://www.ga.gov.au

• Key Collaborative TWIKI Websites– http://www.seegrid.csiro.au– http://www.auscope.org.au

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