Yes, called the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI). There is general agreement that the information represented by the geospatial data sets is fundamental.
The leadership of the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) rests with the Interagency Committee for Geomatics (IACG), a high level committee of federal government agencies, and the Canadian Council of Geomatics (CCOG), a coordinating organization made up of the principal mapping agencies in Canada at the federal and provincial levels. The IACG encourages links to the Canadian private sector and the CCOG has formal links to the Geomatics Industry Association of Canada (GIAC).
Dr. Edryd Shaw
Chairman, Interagency Committee on Geomatics c/o Director General Canada Centre for Remote
Sensing Geomatics Canada, Earth Sciences Sector Natural Resources Canada
Address: 3rd floor 588 Booth Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0Y7 Canada
Phone: 1-613-947-1222
Fax: 1-613-947-1382
E-mail: shaw@ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca
A CGDI secretariat has been established:
Mr. Jeff Labonte CGDI Secretariat c/o Canada Centre for Remote Sensing Geomatics Canada,
Earth Sciences Sector Natural Resources Canada
Address: Room 650 615 Booth Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E9 Canada
Phone: 1-613-992-8609
Fax: 1-613-947-2410
E-mail: labonte@ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca
The infrastructure itself contains little data, these data remain the responsibility of the custodian. Rather, the infrastructure is:
* a set of standards, protocols and services that facilitate the discovery and access to data (presently: Z39.50 query protocol, FGDC meta-data standard)
* adoption of international standards for geospatial data (e.g. ISO/TC211).
* a number of core or framework data sets on which users will be encouraged to construct other data sets. The use of these framework data sets will facilitate data fusion, analysis and reporting.
Core data sets will be distributed free of charge.
* policies that enable the exchange and integration of geospatial data. At present, the effort is focused on common licensing agreements but are foreseen to extend as far as directing government operations and professional/ethical guidelines.
* partnerships for primary data collection. Many of these are already in place for the creation of traditional topographic base maps (geospatial data bases and their cartographic representations). These will be rethought and extended as data models are harmonized and rendered interoperable and the technology evolves to support distributed warehousing, processing, integration and access to disparate data sets. Key facilitator among these operations will be automatic (rigorous, reproducible) generalization processes as well as tool sets for logical (semantic and spatial) data integration.
The CGDI is being implemented as a fully distributed system of geospatial data bases. At its core is a search engine that can identify data suppliers, service providers, collections of geospatial data or specific products. The CGDI provides a number of other central services that may be used for e-commerce, free distribution of data sets, and connection to other clearinghouses. The CGDI provides tool sets that permit organizations to make their collections and products visible to the search engines. CGDI and all its services and references are visible and accessible to users of the FGDC Clearinghouse.
In principle the nature of the geospatial data in or referenced by the CGDI is unrestricted so long as the data set contains explicit, direct or indirect geospatial references. The CGDI indexes:
* base mapping data at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.
* statistical data from many organizations.
* satellite imagery.
* value-added services such as data correction, fusion and analysis.
* interpreted maps, atlases, reports and other "finished" or end-user products.
The National Atlas of Canada is intimately connected to the central services offered by the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure. The CGDI contains references to data in digital and hard copy form.
Data bases or products referenced in the CGDI may or may not be accessible to the general public. Geospatial data may be available free of charge or at a price though the CGDI.
All access to CGDI is through the Web-site:
http://cgdi.gc.caCEONet is the high level system that presently manages the data discovery and access component of the CGDI. Although there is a longer term vision for CGDI, organizations are able to become connected in a number of different ways from a simple advertisement to a capability to respond to a very sophisticated query made against widely distributed data bases. Access to most features in CEONet is free to data and service suppliers as well as to potential clients.
Legal and economic frameworks for access have not yet been addressed in the CGDI. The individual data suppliers set their own policies, collect and manage their own data sets and services, determine their own distribution policies and collect their own revenues (from clients), and assumes any contingent liabilities.
The larger scale data is distributed by the source province and its licensees, the smaller scale data by the federal government and its licensed distributors.
It is recognized that this coordination and data sharing can be extended so that there is no duplication of the data bases (or sets of features) held in various organizations. Technically, the national data base could be made up of a large number of components each contributed and maintained by a different mandated custodian in the federal government, the provincial governments or the private sector.
The conditions of sale and price of data discovered, accessed or otherwise made available through the CGDI are determined by the individual data custodians. One exception to this is that data bases offered as core or framework data are made available free of charge so as to encourage their use.
Almost every organization supplying geospatial data in Canada has different licensing and pricing policies. CGDI is developing a set of guidelines for licensing and pricing which, it is hoped will be adopted by federal and provincial agencies. This will simplify the licensing and pricing of value-added products derived from more fundamental geospatial data bases.
The private sector is encouraged to participate in CGDI through:
* contracts to support to government staff or national committees working on CGDI initiatives domestically and internationally (e.g. support required for Canadian participation on international standards committees.
* development of concepts, designs, systems and software (some under contract to CGDI or other government initiatives).
* contracts for the creation, update and other maintenance of most government geospatial data bases and many products (under contract to government data custodians).
* development and provision of services making use of geospatial information (sometimes cost shared with government programs).
* sale of specialized data bases created in the private sector.
* provision of specialized services accessible to clients through CGDI interfaces (cost borne by clients).
At present there are relatively few geospatial data sets in the public domain are accessible through the CGDI. At present most geospatial data distributed by governments in Canada is copyright and of these that are copyright there are also restrictions on the use and redistribution with royalties payable.
There is a general belief and will that more Canadian geospatial data be freely available (probably meaning that through still copyright there will be no restrictions on use or re-distribution and no royalties payable).
At present, a few agencies in Canada may make data freely available. In most cases these free data sets are highly refined views of much larger, more comprehensive data bases. In the context of CGDI today, GeoGratis (a CEONet subsystem) has been established to distribute geospatial data free of charge. The Canada Land Inventory (1:250k scale digital maps of land capacity) appears in GeoGratis. Very soon all the base maps and thematic files of the National Atlas of Canada will be freely accessible through GeoGratis, This is first manifestation of a new policy of Geomatics Canada making all data at scales of 1:1M and smaller, available free of charge.
Statistics Canada makes all of their data available to Canadian universities at modest cost for teaching and research. Geomatics Canada has announced a similar initiative for the 1:50k and 1:250k topographic data bases.
The individual data custodians are responsible for all issues of confidentiality related to the data sets they choose to make visible through the CGDI. Many custodians are preparing views or aggregations of their data which can be distributed openly while at the same time serving select clients with the full confidential data base.
In some instances, the organization runs two infrastructures: a completely secure internal infrastructure (fully FGDC compliant) and a second public infrastructure (part of CEONet).
No attempt has (yet) been made to the processing or uses of data accessible the CGDI. For example, an organization may be very uncomfortable with the results of overlaying two very frequently referenced data sets that were heretofore difficult to bring together but are very easily accessed through a geospatial data infrastructure and related services.
None. CGDI is a collegial, co-operative initiative to which most Canadian providers of geospatial data and services in the private and public sectors have subscribed. Direction of the CGDI is developed by consensus within the Interagency Committee on Geomatics and the Canada Council on Geomatics.
No funds have yet been specifically identified for the CGDI. Individual organizations have obtained funds to align their operations and geospatial data with the directions of the CGDI. In many cases there are many elements which can be reused by other organizations, again furthering the ends of the CGDI.
A proposal to the federal government may result in significant funding for the development of the CGDI. If approved, it is expected that funds will be available in mid-1999.
There are 3 principal stakeholder groups in the CGDI: data suppliers, service providers and the customers. In addition there is a smaller group actually constructing the CGDI.
* The constructors: a group of technical people mainly from a few federal government agencies. This group has provided the secretariat for the CGDI, sponsored the stakeholder consultations, built CEONet, developed the international connections, populated most of the trader, collections and product data bases. It has also recommended preliminary data distribution policies as part of creating a supportive policy environment for the CGDI. This group also provides direct support to and participation in Canada's standards initiatives (principally ISO TC211).
* Data suppliers: at present this is mainly the primary data suppliers in the federal government (Geomatics Canada, the Canadian Hydrographic Service, National Defence and Statistics Canada) and the provincial mapping agencies. Most of these have directory level entries in the CEONet clearinghouse though only very few have created product/inventory level meta-data or made their products accessible on-line. Many of the secondary data suppliers and custodians of scientific data are supportive of CGDI and are just starting to investigate the systematic creation of CEONet or other clearing houses designed to serve their communities. These clearinghouses, like CEONet, will be interoperable with the FGDC clearinghouse directly or through services provided by CEONet.
* Value-added suppliers: There is great interest in the potential of the CGDI to facilitate a new way of doing business. A number of factors seem to be slowing the complete engagement of the value-added suppliers, whether in government, universities or in industry. The existing client base is adequately served by the long established business practices, distribution mechanisms etc. There is very little data available in the CGDI in which they are interested but not already aware. Very little data can be delivered yet through the infrastructure. Tool kits for the connection of value-added services to the infrastructure are still some ways off. Copyright, licensing and other controls on the distribution data have yet to be harmonized among the various suppliers of the primary data sets, which is thought to hinder the development of commercially available value-added products.
* The customers: Most seem to see the infrastructure as being very beneficial but limited today by a lack of real products and services. Going a deeper, the infrastructure is very close to making geospatial data products and services easier to find but the standardization and tools do not make the data any easier to use.
Bringing geospatial data to a usable state for a particular application is a significant business line for a large number of service companies. Improvements to interoperability, which is one of the principal objectives of the CGDI, will accelerate as the community sees that solutions are possible and moves towards them.
* Meta-data: yes.
* Clearinghouse: yes, fully FGDC interoperable.
* Data standards: international standards recommended, adoption by consensus or
persuasion.
* Core data: yes. To date only one has been prepared: a sparse data alignment layer
extracted from the National Topographic Data base. Core data is made available free of
charge.
Concept and selection other core data or feature sets still under very active discussion. Core data in this context is very new and examples of its use are rare. The tools needed for its use with other data sets are poorly understood or not developed. In addition to core data, there will be many other framework data sets.
Yes. Research specifically to support the CGDI has been funded by individual federal government agencies. Projects include:
* development of tools and services to connect data bases to CEONet.
* Open Geospatial Datastore Interface (OGDI).
* data warehousing (based on OGDI).
* automatic geospatial data base generalization.
* support for the development of commercial applications of geospatial data available through CGDI. This work has been carried out by the private sector, often in partnership with the federal government and clients.
CEONet clearinghouse services are accessible through the World Wide Web with standard browsers. The implementation of CEONet and its data bases use standards-driven COTS software, interfaces, and protocols almost exclusively.
Yes. There are no known global geospatial data sets
created uniquely by Canada. Canada is the custodian for some international scientific data
bases created in partnership with foreign organizations. CEONet may not yet index these
directly. Access to such data bases is usually through the custodian's environment which
is seldom on-line and integrated with the CGDI. (The status is unknown at any instant
because it is the data custodian that creates and maintains the entries in CEONet.)
Usually a client is made aware of a global data set though the CEONet's connection to data
bases of other suppliers (ESA, SPOT, CEOS-IDN) or the FGDC clearinghouse. At present, only
one global data base is actually stored in a CGDI component: the Digital Chart of the
World (VMAP level 0).
Much of CGDI parallels similar initiatives elsewhere. The alignment or affiliation of the CGDI with other networks is often implicit in high level memoranda of understanding between agencies. The affiliation is real at the working level. CEONet has formal linkages to the Centre for Earth Observation (a large project of the European Commission). CEONet has a very close working level collaboration with the FGDC.
The CGDI has been evolved though messianic vision, stakeholder consultation, cults of personality, specific internal funding proposals and hard work. We seem to have missed many of the classical management milestones such as a strategic plan. The long term vision for CGDI comprises 5 (and only 5) themes:
* Access to geospatial information;
* which is built on a common national framework;
* using international standards;
* collected by agencies in partnership, and
* distributed within a supportive policy environment.
Most projects undertaken as part of CGDI will address several of these themes. CEONet began along a classical track and the outcome is documented under (starting from the CGDI home page, go to CEONet) "about CEONet". CEONet, it should be noted, has adopted a spiral development, or rapid prototyping, model. In this, a system component or service is made available. Through formal and informal consultations, the component is accessed in the context of the entirety of CEONet and in the next cycle the recommendations are incorporated. In this way CEONet is able to track technology, particular opportunities, user understanding, the applications facilitated by a geospatial information infrastructure. A formal release of CEONet appears every 4 months and the content of each these releases is planned for the next 2 years. (Recognizing that the development and release of any item can be changed, advanced or delayed depending on the stakeholder feedback received.)
The vision that the entire geomatics community shares is that
someday our data and tools will easily and widely used for management and operations in a
wide variety of disciplines. To date this has elusive. There are many challenges, but
stepping far enough back to see the grand challenge is possible and almost all viewpoints
seem to present a landscape with one prominent feature. The challenge is the creation of a
group of people who truly understand what geospatial information is (the very
fundamentals), how it can be represented, organized, and used. There are very few of these
people in all of Canada and very few receptor organizations that are attuned to the
potential, and we are as well supplied as anywhere. The "system" produces plenty
of people who work in the area of primary data production, lots of GIS mechanics, some
tool builders, data base engineers etc.
Nevertheless, in all this there are very few people who carry the big picture with enough
breadth and depth to understand what it is that they are really doing, what the current
limitations are and what the opportunities are in a new way of doing things. These are not
just philosophers or theoreticians, they have the technical skills and management support
to take their ideas to a stage of implementation that is convincing to other parts of the
geomatics community.
There is an enormous gap between what can be done in the science-technology-art of geomatics and the organizations which could benefit strategically and operationally. The opportunities are not always perceived as benefits to an organization in its present state. Thus part of the challenge is to also develop the appropriate receptors throughout the geospatial information community, receptors that can, in turn, influence the alignment of the community to the new opportunities.
All documents relating to the CGDI may be located starting from the following Web-site:
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