EOM April 2005 > SHARING IN GEOTECHNOLOGIES

Is The FGDC Relevant?

by Al Butler

Author's Note: This article is based in part on my presentation, "Geospatial One-Stop: Form or Substance?" at the 2004 Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) conference in Reno, Nevada.

Hello. I'm Al and I'm a national standards junkie. As with most such stories, it all started several years ago when I tried, but did not inhale, the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS). Then, I went to one of those underground meetings where SDTS users shared stories about how great it made us feel. Before I knew it, I was going hardcore by actually working on federal standards myself. I hit rock bottom with the Geospatial One-Stop. The first step in recovery is admitting I have a problem. I am speaking to you now so that you may learn from my mistakes.

No, there really isn't a Standards Anonymous organization to help us in this case, but we still need to publicly admit we have a problem with national standards. It's not that they are inherently bad; it's just that they are irrelevant. No one uses them. And if we don't need the standards, then what is their primary creator, the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), supposed to be doing?

Many readers will likely think I have broken several implicit rules of ethical GIS practice in just the first paragraph. For example, I have said that national standards are neither necessary nor useful, which may be redundant. (If they were necessary, then they would certainly be in use.) I have also implied that we can get along quite fine without them, thank you very much, as we have been doing so for many years. So, rather than our having been struggling while awaiting their arrival, we have actually been proving we don't need them.

Figure 1 Sources of U.S. geospatial standards.

Let me be clear that what I am talking about here are the standards developed by the FGDC, which, once adopted, become requirements for federal computer systems. There are five sources of U.S. geospatial data standards, including default product-based things like shapefiles and DWG fields (Figure 1). But all these other sources don't have the federal mandate of the FGDC and its data standards. The FGDC's 13 thematic committees and 14 working groups are directed by OMB Circular A-16 (1990; last rev. Aug. 2002) to lead and support the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) strategy, spatial data policy development, management, and operational decision making (Figure 2 ). In this role, the FGDC shall "serve as the lead federal executive body charged with the leadership, development, implementation, and review of spatial data standards."

Figure 2 FGDC organization. Image courtesy of FGDC

What evidence do I have to offer that we aren't using FGDC-authored standards? None other than a learned publication of the GIS profession: the Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA). Its 2004 issue (Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 15-29) carried an article on the actual data interaction mechanisms being used in the United States. The authors of that paper surveyed 245 geospatial data sharing organizations. A little over 10 percent indicated that they used some kind of national standard in a portion of their data exchanges, a little less than half of which was the FGDC metadata standard. Two- thirds of the respondents said they used locally developed standards, while well over a fifth said they used no standards at all. (Note that there is some double counting here since some respondents indicated the use of multiple data exchange mechanisms.) One may conclude from these data that federal standards are not necessary for data exchanges to occur.

Those not yet convinced might argue that while standards may not be necessary, they must certainly make it easier. Again, I must respond that the evidence does not support such a conclusion. Although I have personally argued elsewhere that the provision of effective metadata is a requirement of ethical professional GIS practice, I do not particularly care for the FGDC's standard. If the URISA-published study is any indication, I don't seem to be alone. The complexity and repetitiveness of the metadata standard work against its adoption. Wouldn't it be better to have something simpler to implement that let people move part-way towards a complete solution? How many fail to do any metadata in the belief that it's all or nothing?

Metadata and other data exchange standards form a technical solution, but we repeatedly read articles showing that our primary impediments to data exchange are organizational. We technical types keep working on technical standards because we don't have the political horsepower to overcome the real organizational obstacles and enable data exchange. But even those efforts are waning. Like Wonderland's Cheshire Cat, all we can see now is its smile.

(continued . . . )

©Copyright 2005-2021 by GITC America, Inc. Articles cannot be reproduced,
in whole or in part, without prior authorization from GITC America, Inc.

Privacy Statement