My two cents worth: (01)
I've followed this exchange and I feel that I need to weigh in as
well. I'm of the belief that the Geospatial Profile and a NGEA are
two coupled pieces that both must be accomplished for the goals of
utility, value, and actionable. I see them as VERY different
elements of an overall strategy to integrate and leverage geospatial
components across and among government. (02)
The closest analogy that I can think of (and I'm not good at this!)
is that the Geospatial Profile is, for all intents and purposes, an
owners manual that describes new features available and why you might
want to use them, how they should interact with other components, how
you should be able to assess if it is working correctly, what fuel
types it can run on, and how you may have access to these functions.
It paints the broad picture with the intent of convincing someone to
make use of the new features or at least allowing someone to
determine / assess the impact of not using. It acknowledges the
existing categories and tries to bundle / present this overview in
annotated outline form to communicate breadth, depth, and how
integral these geo-components are to a functional government -
regardless of the level. (03)
The NGEA on the other hand are the tools, techniques, standards,
management practices, etc., etc., etc. that we as geospatial
professionals know and have in our tool box but for the most part are
not know by the CIO's or other IT professionals and certainly not
many management personnel. These tools need to be documented,
formatted, and presented to the larger community of potential
adopters / implementors (many of whom are DBAs) who need to know /
have guidance on the details of how to integrate, leverage, and
spatially enable their data and systems. This is the level at which
the NGEA components have their greatest value - enabling change
within and among the data systems of government and business. It is
not about making a map or even visualizing a data set, but rather at
the atomic level it is allowing the query for geospatial aspects of
information and that information's possible relationships in space
that are otherwise hidden. (04)
In my view, if we just do the Profile and generate the interest at
the top of the process but fail to do the second, which is translate
what we know to paper and make it available, we loose. Possibly even
bigger than if we didn't try at all! If we say we are not going to
strive to organize the tool box (NGEA) then I think that ultimately
what we will have accomplished is them knowing how it should work but
not equipping them to make it work. (05)
Thanks for the soap box. (06)
Tim (07)
At 11:42 AM -0400 7/15/05, Doug Nebert wrote:
>Feinberg, Daniel, CTR, OSD-ATL wrote:
>>All -
>>
>>I would also suggest as additional agenda items for the "NGEA
>>Learning Event":
>>
>>+ What is the NGEA in relation to the UGEA?
>>+ What is the NGEA in relation to the FEA Geospatial Profile? How
>>are they similar or different?
>>+ What is the role of the FGDC in shaping and sustaining the NGEA?
>>+ What is the role of the NSDI, GOS, and the National Map in
>>relation to the NGEA, UGEA, and FEA Geospatial Profile?
>>
>
>I have some suggested answers below.
>
>>This would go a long way to help clarify the sometimes confusing
>>relationship between these various federal and national "geo"
>>initiatives and investments.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Dan Feinberg
>>Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI)
>>Chief Architect
>>Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations and Environment,
>>Business Transformation Directorate
>>DUSD/I&E(BT)
>>703.604.4616
>>
>
>In practice it appears that the *GEA terms are somewhat Overtaken By
>Events in our Community of Practice discussions. There may be a
>notional set of patterns that we might recognize nationally as a
>Geospatial Enterprise Architecture, but it fact we are recognizing
>that there are not, rationally, Geospatial EA's that are isolated
>from the agency and program EAs. To this end we have adopted the
>approach of building a Geospatial Profile of Enterprise Architecture
>to appeal to all levels of government, and all aspects of
>business-oriented EA, with a specific (but not exclusive) audience
>being FEA architects and CIO staff.
>
>I would humbly suggest that we retire the use and promotion of NGEA
>and UGEA in deference to providing geospatial guidance to EA
>practices -- a symmetric approach to the other FEA Profiles.
>
>The FGDC's role is one of supporting intergovernmental coordination
>of all things geospatial, and as such has assumed the responsibility
>to convene and underwrite document collation and facilitation
>support on this task. The CoP is recognized as an FGDC Working Group
>to increase awareness and involvement by FGDC members. It is also
>convened under the CIO Council AIC for visibility by the
>non-geospatial IT managers in the federal government.
>
>What is the role of the GOS, National Map, and NSDI in these
>efforts? The Geospatial One-Stop is made concrete through its search
>and visualization services of community geographic data and services
>at geodata.gov. As such, the adoption of Geospatial profile
>practices will increase visibility into and access to available
>resources of domestic interest. The National Map is a key set of
>data layers backed by map and data services of national scope that
>will be managed and advertised using the Geospatial Profile
>guidance. The NSDI is the fuzzy, umbrella activity that overlies all
>these geospatial efforts that is realized through coordinated
>efforts by all participants. The NSDI benefits by having adopted
>practices and standards as would be espoused in the Profile and
>promoted through groups like the FGDC, NSGIC, NACO, NASCIO and
>others who all have an interest in things working well together.
>
>Doug.
>
>--
>
>Douglas D. Nebert
>Geospatial Data Clearinghouse Coordinator, Information Architect
>FGDC/GSDI Secretariat Phone: +1 703 648 4151 Fax: +1 703 648-5755
>
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--
Timothy L. Haithcoat
Program Director
GRC/MSDIS
104 Stewart Hall, UM - Columbia
haithcoatt@xxxxxxxxxxxx (09)
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