Invitation to OGC workshop in Windhoek, Namibia

After the workshop at University of Pretoria in September, the ICA Commission on SDI & Standards, will organize again a two-day workshop on OGC specifications, 07-08 Nov 2018, presented by Prof Franz-Josef Behr from the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Co-Chair of the Commission. Delegates will be introduced to the technological foundations behind of OGC specifications, there will be hands-on sessions with specific implementations of OGC specifications, and an outlook into the future of OGC standardisation developments.

The workshops is co-organized by the Namibia Statistics Agency, coordinator of the NSDI for Namibia, and is part of the AGSE 2018 conference.

The programme for the workshop, to be held at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) on 08 and 09 November 2018 provides more details. If you would like to participate, please contact Franz-Josef Behr.

Invitation: Workshop “Collaborative custodianship through collaborative cloud mapping – Challenges and opportunities”

The Commissions on SDI & Standards and on Map Production & Geoinformation Management are hosting a joint workshop on collaborative custodianship and collaborative cloud mapping. The workshop is co-organized with the South African Committee for Spatial Information (CSI) Subcommittee on Education & Training and will be held 14 – 15 Sept 2018 at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

Collaborative custodianship refers to an arrangement where a number of custodians collaborate to produce a national SDI dataset, e.g. local authorities contributing address or street data to a national SDI dataset.

Collaborative cloud mapping allows for ubiquitous convenient on-demand configured and tailor-made mapping with shared resources between various entities collaborating on a specific initiative such as an SDI or for disaster management. The workshop will introduce attendees to collaborative custodianship and collaborative cloud mapping through presentations, demonstrations and case studies. Subsequently, challenges and opportunities for implementing collaborative custodianship through collaborative cloud mapping will be explored in discussions and work sessions. The results of the workshop will be presented at the AfricaGEO 2018 conference, to be held 17-19 September 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The presentation will summarize challenges and opportunities identified during the workshop, and will be followed by a 45-minute panel discussion on the topic.

Franz-Josef Behr joins SDI Monitoring Committee of Baden-Württemberg

Franz-Josef Behr, co-chair of this Commission, is invited to join the SDI Monitoring Committee of its home state Baden-Württemberg, south-west Germany.
In the meeting on 12th July 2017 he will introduce his background and the work of our commission.
Further topics include INSPIRE and SDI Germany, contribution to the INSPIRE Conference in Strasbourg, the INSPIRE monitoring, metadata, and land use classification.

More details: 2016 Full Commission Meeting

The 2016 Full Commission Meeting will take place on the Töölö campus of the Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. The venue is less than 10 minutes walk from Kamppi, the central bus station and metro. We will start at 12:00 on Friday, 10 June and finish on Saturday evening. As agreed at the business meeting in Brazil, the Full Commission meeting will be used to initiate collaborative research on one or more of the following: Geospatial Interoperability Manifesto; ICA conceptual model for SDIs at universities; and Further work on the impact of SDIs on value added resellers.

For more information, please contact the Commission Chairs: Serena Coetzee or Franz-Josef Behr.

2016 Full Commission Meeting

The 2016 Full Commission Meeting is planned for 10-12 June in Helsinki, Finland, on the weekend before the AGILE 2016 conference. The venue for the Commission Meeting is to be announced. Collaborative research will be initiated during the meeting. We plan to start around lunch on Friday, 10 June. We may finish on Saturday evening, but if necessary, we can use an hour or two on Sunday morning. As proposed at the business meeting in Brazil last year, possible research topics are:
– Geospatial Interoperability Manifesto
– ICA conceptual model for SDIs at universities
– Further work on the impact of SDIs on value added resellers

If you would like to attend, please contact the Commission Chairs: Serena Coetzee or Franz-Josef Behr.

Call for papers: Special issue of International Journal of Cartography

The role of
spatial data infrastructures, standards, open data and open source software
in mapping

Ever-increasing volumes of geographic information pose challenges for making geographic information available and usable in maps. In celebration of the International Cartographic Association’s International Map Year 2015/16, we invite original research contributions on the role of spatial data infrastructures (SDI), standards, open data and open source software in mapping for a special issue of the International Journal of Cartography.

The discovery, access, exchange and sharing of geographic information and services among stakeholders from different levels in the spatial data community is facilitated through a SDI. Standards are key for the quality and development of interoperable geographic information and geospatial software. The drive for access to geographic information has led to its publication as open data, i.e. freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. According to a report by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), the use of open source software solutions is likely to increase significantly in the future as a viable alternative to proprietary suppliers. Open source software for geospatial, geographic information standards and open data policies are therefore significant for SDI development and implementation.

This special issue follows on SDI-Open 2015, a pre-conferenece workshop of the 27th International Cartographic Conference, titled Spatial data infrastructures, standards, open source and open data for geospatial (SDI-Open 2015), which was jointly organized by the Commission on Geoinformation Infrastructures and Standards, the Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) on 20 and 21 August at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While workshop presenters will be invited to submit expanded versions of the extended abstracts presented at SDI-Open 2015, the call is now open to all researchers. Please follow the journal’s Instructions for authors.

Important dates
Call for papers opens:            14 December 2015
Paper submission:                  1 March 2016
Notification of acceptance:     1 June 2016
Publication of special issue:    1 December

Guest editors
Serena Coetzee serena.coetzee@up.ac.za (Chair: ICA Commission on SDI and Standards)
Franz-Josef Behr franz-josef.behr@hft-stuttgart.de (Vice-Chair: ICA Commission on SDI and Standards)
Antony Cooper acooper@csir.co.za (Former Chair: ICA Commission on SDI and Standards)
Silvana Camboim silvanacamboim@gmail.com (Chair: ICA Commission on Opensource Geospatial Technologies)
Michael Finn mfinn@usgs.gov (Vice-Chair: ICA Commission on Opensource Geospatial Technologies)

Commission websites
Commission on SDI and Standards: sdistandards.icaci.org
Commission on Opensource Geospatial Technologies opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org