Impetus for this meeting
draft by Karen Kemp, May 25, 1998
In December 1997, the US National Center for Geographic Information
and Analysis and the Open GIS Consortium convened an international conference
and workshop on Interoperating Geographic Information Systems, called Interop'97.
Topics addressed included the current state of research in related disciplines
concerning the technical, semantic, and organizational issues of GIS interoperation;
case studies of GIS interoperation; theoretical frameworks for interoperation;
and evaluations of alternative approaches. Arising from these discussions
about GI Systems interoperation was an awareness that interoperation might
also be applied to GIS education.
The report from the Interop'97 meeting defines interoperability for
GIS in the following manner:
Interoperability means many things to people. It means openness in
the software industry, because open publication of internal data structures
allows GIS users to build applications that integrate software components
from different developers, and it allows new vendors to enter the market
with competing products that are interchangeable with existing components,
just as the concept of interchangeable parts helps competition in the automobile
industry. In the past few years the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) has emerged
as a major force in the trend to openness, as a consortium of GIS vendors,
agencies, and academic institutions (http://www.opengis.org). Interoperability
also means the ability to exchange data freely between systems, because
each system would have knowledge of other systems’ formats. Exchange standards
such as the Spatial Data Transfer Standard … have had a significant impact
on the ease with which data can be transferred between systems. They allow
a user of one vendor's products to make use of data prepared using another
vendor's products, because data can be transferred in a standard format.
Interoperability also means commonality in user interaction, as system
designers build interfaces that can be customized to a ‘look and feel’
familiar to the user. (Goodchild, Egenhofer and Fegas, 1998, p. 2)
Geographic information systems have been adopted widely over the past
two decades in support of planning, forestry, agriculture, infrastructure
maintenance, and many other fields. Each software product developed essentially
independently, with little in the way of overarching theory or common terminology.
As a result, it is very difficult for different systems to share data,
for users trained on one system to make use of another, or for users to
share procedures developed on different systems. The term ‘interoperability’
suggests an ideal world in which these problems would disappear, or at
least diminish significantly, as a result of fundamental changes in design,
approach, and philosophy. ((Goodchild, Egenhofer and Fegas, 1998, p. 1)
The advent of interoperating GISs has many implications for education.
Many of the measures of the success of interoperation identified at Interop
'97 are specified as measurable changes in the content of GIS courses.
This suggests that GIS education may become an unwitting accomplice in
the move to interoperation. However, an alternate view may be that GIS
education will become a fortunate beneficiary. The vision of interoperating
GISs foresees ubiquitous GIS and the corresponding necessary pervasive
spatial thinking and awareness. The same vision also acknowledges that
success in interoperability means that there are many things which will
no longer need to be learned. How will GIS education change with interoperability?
There are two perspectives to consider in this context: 1) Interoperability
and GIS education, and 2) Interoperability for GIS education.
While the first of these will be an important growing theme for GIS
educators which will undoubtedly provide substance for other important
meetings and other reports, the meeting recorded by this report focused
on the second perspective - Interoperability for GIS education. The basis
for the discussions at this meeting are outlined in the White Paper provided
in the following section.
Reference
Michael F. Goodchild, Max J. Egenhofer, and Robin Fegeas, 1998. Interoperating
GISs, Report of a Specialist Meeting. National Center for Geographic
Information and Analysis, University of California Santa Barbara.
Go to the next section of the
report - White Paper
Go back to the Table of Contents