CEOS NEWSLETTER No.13
page 6
CONTENTS
The 8th WGISS Meeting and WGISS Special Workshop
Mr. Takashi Moriyama, WGISS Chair, NASDA
Mr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, WGISS Secretariat
The 8th meeting of the CEOS Working Group on Information Systems
and
Services (WGISS) was held in Brighton, England from May 12th - 14th
1999, in conjunction with a special workshop to discuss "IPR and
Data Policy" - hosted by the British National Space Centre.
Workshop
On the first day, the workshop convened with the aims of:
i) identifying the suite of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) legislation
that applies to the use of EO data and discussing its role as a tool in
the development of EO exploitation;
ii) discussing the role of data policy as a mechanism for providing
a 'framework' within which to stimulate growth in the use of EO and contrasting
the implementation of current policies from an 'end user' perspective.
The various presentations illustrated the different goals and objectives
underlying the data policies of the various agencies participating - but
all agencies agreed that a common goal was to achieve the maximum exploitation
of EO data.
-
The following recommendations were put forward to the full WGISS 8 meeting
for inclusion in the report to the CEOS plenary: common use of terminology
should be applied by CEOS agencies (e.g. 'cost' vs. 'price', 'cost of reproduction'-
which was noted to vary by a factor of 10 according to current definitions
across CEOS agencies);
-
the implications of IPR need to be considered at the outset of any
WGISS projects to ensure objectives are met without impediment;
-
CEOS agencies should be invited to keep WGISS informed on EO data
policy developments;
-
Future considerations of data policy need to be undertaken in the
context that EO data is a subset of geospatial and other data sets in the
global geo-information environment.
Meeting
The highlights of the WGISS meeting proper included:
-
the unveiling of the new WGISS brochure (which will also be distributed
at the Plenary) as a collaboration between BNSC, EC/JRC, and NASDA;
-
a review of the success of WGISS attempts to promote its results better
through the CEOS Plenary, focusing of late on the adoption of CIP - the
Catalogue Interoperability Protocol - for future data information systems
of CEOS agencies; WGISS is pursuing co-operation with the Open GIS Consortium
(OGC) as the optimal way to promote widespread adoption of CIP;
-
David Williams of EUMETSAT attended WGISS-8 on behalf of the CEOS Chairman
to express the desire for improved communication between the Plenary and
Working Group levels of CEOS; this will be one of the topics to be addressed
in a paper to be presented to the Plenary in Stockholm;
-
the establishment of a task team, led by Takashi Moriyama, for WGISS to
'house' a evolution study for GOIN to become a global initiative. WGISS
will report to the 2000 Plenary on the outcome; it also agreed to hold
a WGISS Sub-Groups and GOIN combined meeting in the USA in September 1999;
-
the appointment of Terry Fisher of CCRS as the next WGISS Vice Chair Efollowing
the CEOS Plenary; Peter Churchill of EC/JRC and Terry Fisher of CCRS will
be the new Chair and Vice Chair team for the next 2 years from that time;
-
an announcement by CNES that they will produce a further edition of the
CEOS CD-ROM, in 2000;
The meeting also heard reports from the 3 Sub-Group Chairs (Access, Data,
Network) updating members on the progress of the various task team activities.
Full details of WGISS activities may be found at:
http://wgiss.ceos.org including electronic versions of the new WGISS
brochure materials.
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