_____   __________________  ____  ____ 
              /  _/ | / /_  __/ ____/ __ \/ __ \/ __ \
              / //  |/ / / / / __/ / /_/ / / / / /_/ /
            _/ // /|  / / / / /___/ _, _/ /_/ / ____/ 
           /___/_/ |_/ /_/ /_____/_/ |_|\____/_/      
                                                       
               _   __                  __     __  __           
              / | / /__ _      _______/ /__  / /_/ /____  _____
             /  |/ / _ \ | /| / / ___/ / _ \/ __/ __/ _ \/ ___/
            / /|  /  __/ |/ |/ (__  ) /  __/ /_/ /_/  __/ /    
           /_/ |_/\___/|__/|__/____/_/\___/\__/\__/\___/_/     
*************************************************************************
Number 10     ***         INTEROP NEWSLETTER      ***        August 2000
*************************************************************************

In This Issue:
--------------
I.     Deadline for registration for Bangkok.
II.    Directory of Earth Science Services Prototype
III.   New "Builder" Tools
IV.    Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) Update
V.     IDN Poised to Handle DIF to ISO Conversions
VI.    Draft Agenda for Thursday, September 14, 2000 (p.m.)



I.   Deadline for registration was August 8th.  If you haven't
     registered, you must do so immediately.   Information can 
     be found by following the links on the CEOS WGISS SGs AIT 
     web page:

     http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/ceos

**************************************************************************

II.  Directory of Earth Science Services Released 
     by Miriam Goldfarb and Dave Kendig
                                

     A beta version for a directory of Earth Science Services has
     just been released for comment by IDN participants.  Earth
     Science Services include products, tools, concepts, or programs
     created for application to Earth Science data.  A hierarchy of
     service keywords (Category > Topic > Term) has been created based 
     on the GCMD Earth science data keywords hierarchy.  Examples
     of Earth Science Services include: physical and mathematical models,
     analysis and visualization packages, educational curricula, and more.

     The main goal of offering a services locator is to further assist the
     user community in finding the data sets and services necessary for
     analyzing, processing, and evaluating Earth information.  Initially,
     a free-text interface to search for Earth Science Services and an
     online service description tool will be offered.  In the near future,
     users will be able to use a hierarchical search interface to locate
     service descriptions by Topics and Terms.

     New users to this system are encouraged to discover Earth Science
     Service descriptions through the search interface:

     http://gcmd.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/md/services_search.pl

     or add new service descriptions using the online documentation form,
     Service Documenter:

     http://gcmd.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/md/serfbuilder/serfbuilder  

     An Earth Science Service presentation and demonstration will be
     delivered at the CEOS IDN task team meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
     Comments and suggestions will be solicited regarding Earth Science
     Service categories and web page functionality.

***************************************************************************

III.  New Metadata Authoring Tools Available
      by Janine Pollack

      The American Coordinating Node of the CEOS IDN is pleased to 
      announce the release of a new suite of web-based data and service
      authoring tools.  These tools will further assist the international 
      Earth science community in efficiently creating high quality
      Directory Interchange Format (DIF) metadata for data sets and
      Service Entry Resource Format (SERF) metadata for data services.

      The "builder" suite consists of three individual tools: DIFbuilder, 
      MODDIFbuilder, and SERFbuilder.  These tools enable a user to create
      new data entries, modify existing data entries, and create new
      service entries, respectively.  With these tools, a more interactive
      approach to metadata authoring is taken, as they feature a visual  
      "checklist" of DIF/SERF fields that automatically update as fields
      are completed.  In this way, the user can very quickly determine
      which of the required and optional fields have not been populated.

      Another new feature available with the "builder" suite is the
      ability to create personal templates.  In essence, a personal
      template is a partial DIF (or SERF) that contains any fields that
      would repeatedly be filled out with the same information for
      multiple records.  Thus, if a user has hundreds of DIFs to write,
      he/she can begin by creating a personal template containing any
      repeated information (for example Data Center and DIF Author), and
      use this template as the starting point for each DIF completed.

      The new tools may be found at the following locations:
      http://gcmd.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/md/difbuilder/difbuilder
      http://gcmd.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/md/moddifbuilder/moddifbuilder
      http://gcmd.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/md/serfbuilder/serfbuilder

***************************************************************************

IV.   Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) Update
      by Lee Belbin   (Note:  Lee Belbin from the Joint Committee on
      Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) will be attending the WGISS
      meeting in Bangkok in September.)

      Through funding from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
      (SCAR) and the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs
      (COMNAP), JCADM will support the the Antarctic community's metadata
      activities from 2001-2002 through the IDN.

      JCADM's priority has been the development and support of an
      Antarctic Data Directory System (ADDS). The ADDS comprises National
      Antarctic Data Centres (NADCs) linked by metadata to an Antarctic
      Master Directory (AMD). This strategy has been a response to Article
      III.1.c of he Antarctic Treaty which states that "scientific
      observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made
      freely available".  The AMD has been hosted for the past year at the
      GCMD. The AMD is a Web entry to the GCMD metadata records that
      identifies the subset composed of Antarctic and Southern Ocean DIFs.

      NADCs have been formally designated by Argentina, Australia, Canada,
      Chile, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand,
      Spain, UK and USA.  Each NADC is resourced to fit the requirements
      of the national operator.  Some are resourced to the level of one
      part-time staff member to encourage and support the generation of
      metadata by Antarctic scientists through the GCMD Web site. Others
      have sufficient resources to generate multidisiplinary on-line
      databases in addition to in-house metadata management. All NADC
      metadata is currently funneled to the GCMD. With the advent of MD-8,
      DIFs generated through NADCs will remain on within those NADCs. It is
      envisaged that the GCMD DIF entry facilities will be used by those
      Antarctic Treaty countries that have not established an NADC.

      At the previous meeting of the SCAR Executive in Goa in 1999, there
      was questionning of the need for Antarctic data management as
      proposed by JCADM and endorsed by the Antarctic Treaty. Fortunatly,
      at the recent SCAR XXVI and COMNAP XII meetings in Tokyo in July
      this year, there was a complete reversal by the SCAR Executive of
      the decision from Goa. This turn-around was in part due to selling
      and demonstrating by JCADM of the AMD and its benefits.  Belbin will
      be attending to maintain effective links between JCADM and the CEOS
      IDN/GCMD community and to deliver a presentation about what is
      happening in Antarctic data management.

      - JCADM home page: http://www.jcadm.scar.org/
      - Free-text AMD: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/amd/ft_search.html
      - Parameter search AMD: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/amd/amd_params.html

*************************************************************************

V.    IDN Poised to Handle DIF to ISO Conversions

      Contributing Authors: Lynn Halpern, Gene Major, Cheryl Solomon
 
       Within the IDN, software exists to present the DIF in different
       metadata formats: FGDC, GILS, ANZLIC, and Dublin Core. The ISO 
       TC211 N930 ISO/CD 19115.3 geospatial metadata standard was out for
       comments in June-July, 2000. When finalized, software will be
       available to also convert from DIF to ISO.

       The ISO metadata standard allows a mapping from all DIF fields
       except for the "Reference" field and this comment was submitted
       during the comment and review period. A mapping has been made
       between DIF fields and ISO/CD 19115.3 and is available at
       http://gcmd.nasa.gov/standards/difiso.html

       In the current MD-7 version, Docmorph, an in-house utility,
       converts the DIF from either an SGML format or a colon-delimited
       format (i.e., the "Raw DIF") to a variety of other metadata
       formats.

       For the MD-8 release, the DIF will be available in the eXtensible
       Markup Language (XML) for greater interoperability, which will
       allow the conversion between DIF and the future ISO metadata
       standard.  The eXtensible Style Language (XSL), a transformation
       and formatting language, will allow the XML to be displayed as
       HTML or some other format.  (For more on XSL see
       http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/updates/14.html#What)

       XML and XSL will allow the rapid conversion of DIF to ISO when the
       standard is adopted as an International Standard. 

       The new work schedule for the ISO Metadata Standard approved at
       the ISO TC211 10th Plenary and ISO TC211 Metadata Standard 19115.2
       Committee Draft Editing Committee in Capetown, South Africa
       Plenary, as well as a recap of prior meetings, is the following - 
       http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/whatsnew/fgdciso.html):

       3rd Committee Draft - out in May 2000;  
       Draft International Standard - October 2000; 
       Final Draft International Standard - March 2001; 
       International Standard - July 2001.

       ISO/TC 211 Geographic Information/Geomatics provides
       information about the agenda for upcoming ISO TC 211 meetings 
       and ongoing work and is at http://www.statkart.no/isotc211/.

***************************************************************************

VI.  Draft Agenda 

Agenda: CEOS IDN Task Team Meeting
CEOS Draft Agenda
Thursday September 14, 2000, Bangkok, Thailand

A. Review of Minutes From London April 2000 Meeting

B. MD7 Status at the American Coordinating Node

     - Population and Usage Statistics  
     - Available Interfaces
     - Keyword Definitions  
     - Subscription Service
     - Learning Center
     - Global Change Conference Calendar
     - Highlights from the Science User Working Group Meeting (May 2000)

C. Ongoing Activities 

     - Status of Software Installations at Nodes (Post-MD7 Upgrades)
     - Current Mirroring Techniques (Proxy Server, Caching)
     - DIF Building Tools  
         - DIF Builder
         - MODDIFBuilder
         - SERF BUilder
         - International Oceanographic Data Exchange (IODE) MEDI Metadata Tool
     - Earth Science Services
         - Services Entry Resources Format (SERF) metadata fields
         - Search for Earth science Services
         - Earth science services keywords

D. IDN Node Reports 
     - CCRS/CEONet 
     - NASDA 
     - CSIRO 
     - UNEP Sites
     - CNES
     - NEONET 
     - DLR
     - ESA
     - INPE 
     - CONAE  
     - JCADM

      Please include in these reports, sections on:

          1. Metrics 
             i. Number of DIFs contributed 
            ii. Usage Statistics 

          2. Status of Software/System Installations  
             i. Current/Proposed Hardware 
            ii. Software Versions Running/Planned 

          3. Content Synchronization / Update Frequency 

          4. IDN Page Node Pages

          5. Advertising

	  6. Issues/Concerns


E. IDN Collaboration With Other Groups  
   - Data and Information Access Link (DIAL)
   - Earth Science Information Partnership (ESIP)
      - ESIP Search Portal
      - Products and Services
      - Interoperability/SWIL
      - Distributed Oceanographic Data System (DODS)
      - Seasonal Interannual Earth Science Informatioon Partner (SIESIP)
    - ISO Metadata Standards 
    - Earth Observing System (EOS) Data Gateway (EDG)
    - University of Virginia - Thesaurus development
    - Global Observing System Information Center (GOSIC)
        - GOSIC Search Portal
    - International Oceanographic Data Exchange (IODE)
    - Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC)
        - GOFC Search Portal
    - CEOS Disaster Management Support Group 
        - Proposed hazard keywords
    - U.S. Department of Agriculture AGROS Project


F. Release of MD8

     - MD 8 Release
       - Database Integration
       - OO Design Model for System Architecture
       - Platform Independence of Core Software 
       - Full XML Compatibility 
       - GUI for Operations 
       - GUI for Personnel 

     - Interoperability 
       - Among Autonomous Systems 
       - CIP/ISO Compatibility 

     - DIF Modification Proposals for MD8
       - Data Set Citation Modification
       - IDN Node rename and functionality

     - Population Issues 
       - Agents for Automatic Database Population
       - Autocreation of DIFs by Using Programs to place SGML/XML
             Tags Around ASCII Metadata
        - Data Resolution Focus - Resolution Converters

G.   MD9 (2001) 
     - Proposals for Additions/Deletions to DIF 
     - Use of polygons and polylines for search and retrieval of
       geospatial information
     - Heterogeneous interoperability
     - Free-text search enhancements
     - Parent/child relationship enhancements
     - Thesaurus

VII. Issues - Discussion

     - Keywords / Valids
     - Thesaurus
     - Gazetteers
     - Increasing Usage Statistics & collecting data from nodes
     - Education and Outreach

For more information or questions about this agenda, please contact 
Lola Olsen, (olsen@gcmd.nasa.gov ) IDN Task Team lead.

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