U.S. GEOSCIENCE INFORMATION NETWORK: A CRITICAL PATH FOR DATA INTEGRATION IN THE U.S. EARTH SCIENCES

Development efforts for the U.S. Geoscience Information Network (US GIN) over the last two years have crystallized around the Community for Data Integration (CDI) at the USGS, and the 50-state AASG State Geothermal Data project. The next step in developing a USGS-AASG community is to bring these two efforts into closer alignment through greater participation in CDI activities by geoinformatics practitioners from state geological surveys, and implementation of test bed activities by the USGIN partners, within two years.

Test bed activities in the geological survey community will define a scope and provide a foundation to promote the use of specifications developed by the larger geoinformatics community. Adoption of some of these specifications as ‘standards’ by USGS and AASG for use by those organizations will lend authority and motivate wider adoption.

The arc from use case to test bed to production deployments to agreement on ‘standard’ specifications for data discovery and access must be propelled by active interest from the user communities who have a stake in the outcome. The specifications developed will benefit the organizations involved in development, testing and deployment, which motivates participation -- a model that has worked successfully for standards organizations such as OGC, ISO and OASIS.

The governance structure to support such a community process should promote grass root nucleation of interest groups that are the core of development efforts. Some mechanism for community agreement on priorities is desirable because geological survey agencies will need to allocate resources to support development. Loosely knit organizations such as ESIP and the current CDI provide models for this kind of structure.

Because many geological surveys have data archive and dissemination functions as part of their portfolio, some support for the system can be built into the operating expenses and overhead. Sharing of resources and reuse of components can reduce the cost. Wide adoption of similar software, protocols and practices increases the number of stake holders with an interest in supporting the system.