Marine Information Community Interoperability Forum
Marine information is particularly dependent on interoperability standards because the Marine sector intrinsically:
- involves international agreements
- involves Federal/State jurisdiction issues
- is typified by legal and science based semantics that are open to many interpretations
- interoperates through the coastal zone with many land based jurisdictions
- sees the same data used for very different purposes (planning, navigation, models)
This site is hosted as part of the SEEGrid community for several reasons:
- SEEGrid seeks to empower interoperability across sub-domains, and there is an overlap between the Marine science and Earth Science communities
- SEEGrid is developing and testing a reference architecture (extending GRID and Web Services concepts) that allows brokering of data interoperability standards across related domains
- The two domains are at a similar stage of development and face common issues and opportunities
- There is significant overlap of projects, skills and interests between the domains
Collaboration is now supported via the
AUKEGGS project. This will ensure cross-fertilisation of concepts, skills and directions across the range of related activities in Australia and the UK, and promote more efficient liaison with international activities.
There is arguably a driver from the Marine sector to see adoption of common models and interoperability standards by State agencies within the land management sector. A public discussion forum and dissemination approach is also required for this issue. Volunteers please!
Key Linkages
A second phase of
MarineXML (
MOTIIVE) started in September 2005. This project has a particular emphasis on the coastal zone and harmonisation of data standards across such sectors, along with cost benefit analysis of interoperability standards. Social Change Online and CCLRC (NERC Data Grid) are leading a work package looking at Feature Type Cataloguing methodologies.
The roadmaps of
MOTIIVE and the European INSPIRE program are aligned through collaboration in a related project (RISE) driven by OGC-Europe.
National Oceans Office - Oceans Portal
National Oceans Office has established a strategy of SDI based development of distributed information management capabilities. NOO has participated in SEEGrid workshops. The Oceans Portal project is currently under development and will be based on a scalable approach to interoperability semantics pioneered in the SEEGrid community. In particular it extends the geosciences experience by exploring the approach to cataloguing operational and discovery metadata.
See
http://www.oceans.gov.au/oceans_portal.jsp
Australian Oceanographic Data Centre - Joint Facility
This joint venture between major commonwealth agencies is emerging and will be closely aligned with the National Oceans Office Portal project, and participating in
BlueNet
In scope, it is highly similar to the UK NERC
DataGRID's initial ambitions to create Web service access to the British Oceanographic Data Centre holdings.
BlueNet is a project to publish data holdings within the Australian academic community. The Oceans Portal will be populated though this and similar initiatives.
See
http://www.bluenet.org.au
Related national forums:
NB. This page is focussed on informing the commnuity about informal but potentially valuable linkages with international efforts. We do not plan to duplicate existing material about current activities, although it is hoped that we will be able to manage a database of local standards activities along the lines of, or within, the international
MarineXML "ontology of standards activities".
CSIRO Marine's list of national forums
MarineXML homepage @ UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Committee
MarineXML is an ongoing international consortium activity being progressed through specific projects.
An initial project was EU funded, and run by an international consortium to develop a framework for XML interoperability within the Marine sector. It analysed requirements and proposed menchanisms for registering, extending and cross-walking emerging standards.
http://ioc3.unesco.org/marinexml/contents.php?id=28 Final position paper.
A key outcome is that
MarineXML will promote re-usable schemas based on ISO standards (e.g. GML) but allow registration of existing specifications.
Another key deliverable from
MarineXML is a database of related technical standards and the bodies and programs which are developing or adopting these. This database is available on the web in the form of an "ontology".
A browsable interface to this database is available (using Protege's native interface) at
http://ioc3.unesco.org/mistr-browse//.
The Oceans Portal project will maintain a register of local activities using a compatible semantic model to allow integration of these resources. Probably the
MarineXML ontology will be imported into the Marine Catalogue.
SEEGrid in provides a conduit to the OGC and ISO communities to meet the emerging needs of such large-scale scientific applications.
IHO (Hydrographic Charting standards)
International Hydrographic Organisation is developing a guide to using ISO Geographic Information standards (191xx) for hydrographic information. This is to be called S-100. In some ways it is a successor to S-57.
The
MarineXML consortium is interested to have S57-like schemas and ontologies as core templates for re-use within
MarineXML.
Working papers are released for comment at
http://iho.int/COMMITTEES/CHRIS/TSMAD/TSMADSubWG/S-57_DevPages/S57_Edition_4_Dev_Page.htm.
Scientific Council on Antarctic Research (SCAR)
SCAR is an international body with an agenda that includes interchange of information relating to the Antarctic. Australia is a significant player both in terms of interests and through the activities of the Australian Antarctic Data Center, and there is significant overlap between Antarctic issues and general Marine issues in the Australian sphere. This web site should be used to record significant interoperability issues and agreements as they emerge.
AAD is a member of the AODC-JF and has a keen interest in internationalisation of standards approaches due to
its leading role in data management within SCAR.
Site Tools of the Marineweb Web
Notes:
- You are currently in the Marineweb web. The color code for this web is this background, so you know where you are.
- If you are not familiar with the SEEGrid collaboration platform, please visit WelcomeGuest first.