GSDI

From the GSDI Website:
 * The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association is an inclusive organization of organizations, agencies, firms, and individuals from around the world. The purpose of the organization is to promote international cooperation and collaboration in support of local, national and international spatial data infrastructure developments that will allow nations to better address social, economic, and environmental issues of pressing importance.

GSDI 10 Conference
The GSDI Association organizes the International Conference for Spatial Data Infrastructure 2007. OSGeo will submit proposals for Workshop sessions to demonstrate the FOSS SDI stack. Please help to put together a comprehensive proramm, submission deadline is June 1st.

There is interest from several projects:
 * GeoNetwork opensource
 * GeoServer
 * Mapbender
 * gvSIG (will request OSGeo entry soon)
 * please add more only if you can contribute

OSGeo can highlight the whole software stack and present how it interoperates plus explain FOSS advantages beyond the obvious.

Workshop Proposal
This page contains content and contributors to the emerging GSDI Workshop.


 * Contact and Confirmation
 * Professor Harlan Onsrud, Interim Executive Director
 * Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI)

1. Proposed Workshop Title
 * Getting Started with Free and Open Source Software for SDIs

2. Organizer/Contact Person (name, title, address, country, phone, fax, e-mail)
 * Open Source Geospatial Foundation
 * Arnulf Christl Board Member, (event owner)
 * Siemensstr. 8
 * 53111, Bonn
 * Germany
 * Germany

3. Workshop Description and Goals (250 words or less suitable for posting on the web. Please include in the description if the session will involve lecture, hands-on exercises, group exercises, etc. and whether any take-home materials will be supplied and indicate whether participants should bring a laptop computer or anything else to the workshop.)


 * The workshop will introduce some of the latest advances in open source tools for SDI development. The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a central resource for geospatial projects with open licenses and collaborative development models.  This workshop will mostly center on gvSIG, GeoServer, Mapbender and GeoNetwork Open Source.  It will include a lecture and an introduction to installing, configuring, and using the tools for SDI, focusing on WMS, WFS WCS and Catalog 2.0 OGC standards. The workshop will walk through building the basics of a functioning open source SDI. Different Open Source GeoSpatial packages for SDI will also be discussed. The first half will be more structured, with discussion of what constitutes an 'OpenSDI', the advantages of a truly open SDI, and an introduction to the tools that can be used to build it today. The second half will consist of demonstrations of the software in action and case studies from around the world.  The workshop will conclude with a question and answer session about real issues building SDI's on open source software. The presenters are experienced open source community members with a wealth of knowledge. A laptop is recommended, but not required. All software demonstrated will be available on a CD for participants to take home.

4. Workshop Topics in First Session (90 Minutes)
 * This workshop gives an introduction to the 'OpenSDI' concept and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. After that OSGeo SDI software projects will be discussed, including an overview of features, programming languages used, interfaces, standards and cross project activities.  Demonstrations of the projects in action will also be shown.  All projects have in common that they are licensed as Free and Open Source Software and are operated with an open governance model. The second part of the first session will focus on how to participate in the processes of these projects and how to find out which level of involvement gives best return on investment.

5. If needed, Workshop Topics in Second Session (90 Minutes)
 * The second session will focus on putting the individual projects in to an SDI setting, showing how they work together to publish, find and bind diverse geospatial information in a working Spatial Data Infrastructure. In addition to showing the projects in action we will also discuss several case studies from around the world where the shift to open source software has not only been cost effective but has helped to build better SDI's than commercial vendors.

6. Tentative Workshop Instructors/Speakers (list name, title, affiliation - these do not have to be confirmed at this time)
 * Arnulf Christl, OSGeo, Mapbender, WhereGroup
 * Christ Holmes, The Open Planning Project, GeoServer
 * Jeroen Ticheler, FAO, GeoNetwork opensource
 * Salvador Bayarri, IVER, gvSIG Project

7. Intended Audience (technicians, managers, policymakers, introductory, advanced, etc.) and any required skills or interests they should possess
 * Policymakers
 * Managers
 * Technicians
 * Introductory

8. Indicate Preferred Room and Size: e.g. prefer computer lab with 40 person capacity, prefer classroom style with tables and 80 person capacity
 * Prefer classroom style, as large as possible.

Letter from the Organizers
Workshops this time will be offered under a slightly different arrangement that we hope will attract strong attendance. We are requesting workshop proposals by the end of this month so that people registering for the conference will be able to sign up for specific workshops in advance. In this manner instructors will know the number of people attending their workshops and have the contact information for their participants in advance.

We highly encourage you to submit a workshop proposal. For reference, the description of the workshop you presented in Santiago in 2006 may be found at http://www.gsdi.org/gsdiconf/gsdi9/english/09_Act_Work_Sched.htm. Submit your proposal on or before 1 June 2007 to onsrud@gsdi.org with a copy to astevens@gsdi.org. If you submit, you should have a decision by the evaluation committee in early June.