GEOSS Community Portal Recommendations Report to the IIB

1. GEOSS Community Portal RecommendationsReport to the IIB

2. Topics • Presentation to the WPS • Description of the activity • Outreach to full GEO community • Encourage participation/collaboration • Discussion topics for the IIB • General direction of the activity • Issues in need of resolution • Challenges in producing/maintaining the report

3. GEOSS Community Portal RecommendationsTeam Report

4. Outline • Motivation • Why do we need this paper? • Approach • How are we developing it? • Team • Who is working on it? • Document Overview • What will be produced? • Status and Plans • When will it be completed?

5. GEOSS Common Infrastructure • The GCI supports access to all registered GEOSS resources • The GEOSS Portal interfaces with the Discovery/Access Broker (DAB) to discover, search and access resources in the GCI registries and those within large, federated EO catalogues. • The GEOSS Portal allows filtering on science and application disciplines of the Societal Benefit Areas.

6. Rationale for Community Portals • As good and necessary as the GEOSS Portal is, communities still wish to develop their own interface to relevant data and services • Provides visibility to their particular program • Supports integration of EO and non-EO data • Enables integration of specialized community services (e.g. data processing, sensor webs, model webs…) • Ideally Community Portals will utilize GCI for discovery and access of GEOSS resources • GCI can enable CPs to present a community-specific view of GEOSS data, services, standards, etc. • Communities will need assistance • GCI documentation, recommendations, best practices, tutorials, etc.

7. Community Portal Role in GEOSS Community Portals GEOSS Link from GEOSS Portal Community View of GEOSS Resources Community Infrastructure Community Catalogue Community Broker GCI Access to Community Infrastructure Enables Integration of GEOSS and non-GEOSS Registered Resources Community Data, Information, Services and Applications Register Community Resources as Appropriate

8. Community Portal Paper Activity • Purpose – assist developers of Community Portals • Work with communities to identify and characterize functions and use cases of community portals • Demonstrate benefits of utilizing GCI • Instruct on its use • Share experience of previous efforts (e.g. AIPs) • Team – voluntary representatives from GCI component developers and interested communities • Communities at varying stages of portal development and with different levels of experience with GEOSS/GCI • Good representation from AIP participants • Open invitation to new participants • Goal – maximize benefits of GCI and promote community contributions to system of systems

9. Team Members

10. Dual Purpose Document • Outreach • Introductory statement of the purpose and scope of the paper • Good understanding of the objectives and needs of the various communities • Clear presentation of the GCI capabilities and interfaces • Demonstrate benefits of active GEOSS participation • Education • Complete set of instructions, tutorials, recommendations, best practices and examples • Recommendations should include rationale • Document should accommodate different levels of integration/interaction between GCI and community systems (i.e. different use cases)

11. Progress to Date • Initial telecons focused on information sharing • Energy Portal – Lionel Menard • Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks – Jan Rene Larsen • GEOSS Discovery/Access Broker – Stefano Nativi • GEOSS Portal Overview/Demo – Guido Colangeli • Portals of the Water SBA – David Arctur • Portals of Citizens Observatories – Arne J. Berre • EnviroGRIDS – Greg Giuliani • GEO Climate Task (future) – Glenn Rutledge • Community Portal use cases developed • Rough draft of paper near completion • Describes purpose, scope, GCI overview and use cases • Provides structure for capturing recommendations

12. Delivery of Document • Initial delivery of recommendations will be a published document • Ongoing updates are envisioned • Experience of portal development efforts • Evolution of GCI components • New or revised use cases • Options for delivery of updates being discussed • Regularly scheduled document releases • Website with ongoing updates

13. IIB DiscussionGeneral Direction of the Paper • Purpose • Both encourage and enable use of GEOSS/GCI • Use Cases/Definitions • Community Portal / Community GEOSS Portal / Applications • Scope • Plan to focus on Community GEOSS Portals but address other use cases • Access to both GEOSS and non-GEOSS resources (e.g. EO and non-EO data) • Rationale • Community use of GEOSS promotes Community ownership and contributions… • …encourages use of GEOSS standards and best practices… • …facilitates greater integration in the future.

14. IIB DiscussionIssues • GCI evolution • Multiple interfaces to DAB, Clearinghouse and CSR • Changes to registration procedure • Need resolution before making recommendations • Best source of information • Related to evolution • Architecture Design Document (ADD) good source but out of date • Recent UML diagram still being discussed • Support • Are GCI component developers ready to assist Community Portal developers?

15. IIB DiscussionChallenges • Completing the draft document • Purpose, scope, discussion of community needs, use cases/definitions in draft form • Multiple examples from AIP and other efforts can be referenced (e.g. Energy Portal, Water Portals, EnviroGRIDS) • Still need good GCI description as discussed in issues • Will need tutorials on interfacing to DAB (and/or other components) and registration • Then we can propose and discuss recommendations • Timing of document release • Continuing to circulate releases to writing team • Propose delaying more general release until GCI and registration issues resolved • Need authoring help from overly-committed experts