TDWG and the OGC: an Update

1. TDWG and the OGC: an Update Phillip C. Dibner Ecosystem Associates TDWG Annual Meeting Saint Louis, Missouri October 16, 2006

2. - an international industry consortium of more than 300 universities, public agencies, and companies- uses a consensus process to develop publicly-available standards for interoperable geospatial web services- During the past few years, TDWG / GBIF representatives have attended several OGC Technical Committee (TC) meetings. R. Beaman, Jan 2004, Jan 2005, October 2006 D. Hobern, Nov 2005A large delegation in June, 2006 Several members of TDWG GIG, TAG Architect, Implementors Immediately followed TDWG GIG workshop on architecture and modelling The Open Geospatial Consortium

3. OGC TC Meeting, June 2006 TDWG GIG Workshop with OGC architectural contributors Simon Cox and Rob Atkinson At TC meeting, TDWG delegates attended several Working Group and Ad Hoc Sessions: Earth Observation, Natural Resources, and Environment WG (EONRE) Architecture WG Domain Modeling Ad Hoc Discussions with OGC leadership and Management

4. TDWG GIG Workshop • Presentation of TDWG Architecture, with extensive Q&A “in line” by Roger Hyam • Overview of domain modeling requirements and process, by Rob Atkinson • Fundamental notion of a domain conceptual model that embodies notions central to the domain essential to the organization/community • Factoring / breaking up the domain into subdomains / component concepts • Identification of common elements agreed upon by all / present in all implementations • Identification (and possible stubbing out) of external conceptual models - elements that we don’t need to develop • Accommodation of legacy information, records, services, etc. through the notion of representational models - and rules for mapping to conceptual model

5. Workshop - 2 • Presentation of O&M application schema - Simon Cox • Clarification of central role played by Feature of Interest proved critical!! • Development of provisional conceptual model • Focus on nature of specimens vs. (field) observations, and consideration of actual data collection activities revealed hitherto unexpressed FoI: OrganismOccurrence • Practicum on developing a flattened representational view based on DarwinCore, and mapping it to the underlying conceptual model • Issues in development of representational view exposed rework of conceptual model • Ultimately clear that DarwinCore or variants can be mapped to underlying concepts

6. Workshop - 3 • Current status of Darwin Core schema - a simple representational view - Phillip Dibner • Status, rationale, and strategy for incorporating Darwin Core and the TDWG ABCD schema in a working implementation - Javier de la Torre • Service implementation for the German GBIF node: degree WFS serving multiply-nested feature model - Jens Fitzke

7. Accomplishments • Development of core concepts as Feature Types and their relationships, including: • Biological taxa • Specimens and field observations • Time and location - as originally recorded and as verified by subsequent analysis • Others … • Identification of a core notion inherent to conceptual model, but previously not identified: OrganismOccurrence • Elucidation of existing schemas (and implementations that support them) as representational views of underlying conceptual schema • Mutual education; exercise of domain modeling paradigms

8. TDWG at the OGC EONRE WG Report on Recent and Ongoing Activities GIG Workshop and modeling exercise Report on existing and planned service implementations TDWG Architecture Group plans for community-wide architecture Broad recognition of need (and sponsor advocacy!) for: Interoperability among services Use of standards where possible (in particular WFS!) Vote for a recommendation to OGC Staff to draft an MOU for a formal relationship with TDWG Passed by unanimous consent

9. Points of TDWG / OGC Collaboration • explore ways of sharing relevant standards documentation • jointly develop standards-based profiles and schemas to support consistent representation of taxonomic (biological) objects • jointly consider outreach opportunities • potentially identify and promote joint testbed and pilot deployment activities Draft MOU has been favorably received and is likely to be approved

10. Recent and Potential Activities TDWG members have already facilitated attendance of & presentation by OGC staff at a museum data capture workshop at Harvard University, sponsored by the National Biological Information Infrastructure and the Natural Science Collections Alliance. Engagement with the new OGC Interoperability Institute (OGCII) - an affiliate of the industry consortium - dedicated to promotion and development of interoperable geospatial services for scientific inquiry and basic research - board has been constituted, and is populated by leaders of various academic and research organizations Shameless advert: the OGC Science Scenario

11. OGC Science Scenario Realistic scientific use cases sought by OGC for outreach to general research community (in connection with OGCII in particular). Demonstrate credible case(s) that demonstrate applicability of interoperable geospatial systems to scientific questions and methods. As long as we’re doing this, why not make it implementable and actually useful? Build upon work that’s actually being conducted in the research community. The proposal: explore impacts of global climate disruption upon species distributions, using reasonable near-future scenarios for deployment of OGC … and TDWG … service implementations.

12. OGC Science Scenario - 2 Seeking feedback from individuals engaged with such research: is the proposal reasonable, naïve, useful, of interest for an actual research program? Proposal has been drafted. It is rough and needs refinement, but is available. Please ask. OGC perspective: don’t stop there. Explore potential for radical shift in approaches to research using a worldwide, distributed, online laboratory.

13. TIP Acknowledgements