GeoNetwork Australian User and Developers Group

1. Introduction Australian Government agencies urgently requiring a metadata management tool and to meet this need OSDM has undertaken some investigation into possible solutions. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the UN has developed a metadata tool and management environment called GeoNetwork. GeoNetwork is a standards-based, Free and Open Source application to manage spatially referenced resources through the web. It provides powerful metadata editing and search functions as well as an embedded interactive web map viewer. GeoNetwork is attracting considerable attention with its adoption by a number of international programs, countries and regional SDI initiatives, including the USA, France, Czech Republic and Hungary adopting this software. In Australia, the marine community has adopted GeoNetwork as part of the BlueNet initiative. Feedback from members of the Metadata Working Group and from other sources such as Geoscience Australia indicate that GeoNetwork provides the majority of functions required by Australian agencies and has a range of capabilities and also a planned development program in place that will enable it to provide a significant component within the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure. The ANZLIC metadata project has also identified GeoNetwork as a possible long term solution to support Australian metadata requirements. However, it is also acknowledged that GeoNetwork will require some specific development work to address some identified short falls. (Refer to Annex 2). However, any of the possible and available tools selected to provide metadata entry and management would require modification and/or enhancement to meet Australian needs. There is general agreement among the SDMG Metadata Working Group that any effort in modifying and enhancement is best focussed on one tool, and GeoNetwork should be that tool. An advantage of using GeoNetwork beyond its present international penetration, is that Australia will be well positioned to assist neighbouring countries in South East Asia who are looking at adopting the ANZLIC profile of the ISO 19115 standard. Implementing this profile and enhancing GeoNetwork to meet Australian needs would greatly assist in providing support for other countries that wished to adopt the ANZLIC profile. It is important to note that the adoption of GeoNetwork as the freely available tool for metadata entry and management does not preclude the use of any other tool or software package, open source or commercial. The key is compliance to the relevant standards such as ISO19115 and the ANZLIC profile. The GeoNetwork direction is simply a mechanism to provide a suitable tool that can be made available free of charge to any organisation that would like to use it.

2. Management of GeoNetwork Development to Meet Australian Needs There are a range of issues to resolve in establishing GeoNetwork as the freely available metadata tool for Australian Government agencies. In order to address these issues effectively and to ensure that best use is made of the scarce resources available to modify the software from interested agencies, it is proposed that a GeoNetwork Users and Developers Group be established. OSDM will provide the initial secretariat support for this. The concept of this group is to: Provide a governance framework to coordinate and oversee the development of Australian requirements and Australian initiated development activities. Establish priorities for Australian development activities based on agency needs Coordinate the development process to reduce duplication of effort and expenditure and maximise the resources applied to the development task. Ensure compliance with all relevant standards and policies including OGC, ANZLIC profile and the GeoNetwork development procedures and protocols. Provide a more significant and coordinated voice into the GeoNetwork community to:

Ensure future Australian requirements are included in the GeoNetwork program. o Ensure any Australian development of GeoNetwork software is included in new version releases. Provide a mechanism for promoting the use of GeoNetwork and supporting its adoption into agencies. o

This group should be open agency, organisation or individual with an interest in metadata and open source software development. This may include government agencies, academia and research organisations as well as commercial companies.

3. The Way Forward A series of steps are required to progress this activity. Gain agreement and support from interested agencies and any other group that wishes to participate and/or support the establishment of a GeoNetwork User and Developers Group. Establish a detailed requirements/specification document. Determine priorities and resource requirements for initial development activities. Establish a linkage with GeoNetwork developers community and establish rules and procedures for undertaking development activities within GeoNetwork environment. Determine available resources and funds to commence priority development activities. It is possible that different agencies will have different priorities and wish their requirements to be developed first. If an agency either undertakes its own development or funds the development, then there is no reason why a lower priority development activity cannot take place before a higher priority requirement. Part of the benefit of establishing this group is to ensure that any development is undertaken in a way that supports the long term needs of the Australian community and removes the need for any duplication of development effort. The group will work to ensure compatibility of all development activities while still being able to address their own individual priority needs.

4. Background Material Additional material on GeoNetwork (obtained from their web site) and issues and general development requirements are provided below.

Annex 1 - GeoNetwork Background

The following information on GeoNetwork and existing and planned capabilities has been taken from the GeoNetwork web site. GeoNetwork opensource is a standardized and decentralized spatial information management environment, designed to enable access to geo-referenced databases, cartographic products and related metadata from a variety of sources, enhancing the spatial information exchange and sharing between organizations and their audience, using the capacities of the internet. This approach of geographic information management aims at facilitating a wide community of spatial information users to have easy and timely access to available spatial data and to existing thematic maps that might support informed decision making. Maps, including those derived from satellite imagery, are effective communicational tools and play an important role in the work of various types of users: Decision Makers: e.g. Sustainable development planners and humanitarian and emergency managers in need of quick, reliable and up to date user-friendly cartographic products as a basis for action and better plan and monitor their activities. GIS Experts in need of exchanging consistent and updated geographical data. Spatial Analysts in need of multidisciplinary data to perform preliminary geographical analysis and reliable forecasts to better set up appropriate interventions in vulnerable areas.

The main goal of the GeoNetwork opensource software is to improve the accessibility of a wide variety of data, together with the associated information, at different scale and from multidisciplinary sources, organized and documented in a standard and consistent way. The challenge is to enhance the data exchange and sharing between the organizations to avoid duplication, increase the cooperation and coordination of efforts in collecting data and make them available to benefit everybody, saving resources and at the same time preserving data and information ownership. FAO and WFP, and more recently UNEP, have combined their research and mapping expertise to develop GeoNetwork opensource as a common strategy to effectively share their spatial databases including digital maps, satellite images and related statistics. The three agencies make extensive use of computer-based data visualization tools, known as Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) software, mostly to create maps that combine various layers of information. GeoNetwork opensource provides them with the capacity to access a wide selection of maps and other spatial information stored in different databases around the world through a single entry point. GeoNetwork opensource has been developed to connect spatial information communities and their data using a modern architecture, which is at the same time powerful and low cost, based on the principles of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and International and Open Standards for services and protocols (a.o. from ISO/TC211 and OGC). The GeoNetwork opensource architecture, in fact, is largely compatible with the Geospatial Portal Reference Architecture, which is the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Guide to implement a standardized geospatial portal, and is made available as an opensource project on the SourceForge.net site (http://geonetwork.sourceforge.net and http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork). As a result the GeoNetwork opensource software can be used by any interested party as a straightforward and cost-effective means of publishing geographical metadata and data on the web.

So far the GeoNetwork opensource software has been deployed at a number of organizations around the world, the first ones being FAO-GeoNetwork (http://www.fao.org/geonetwork) and VAM-SIE-GeoNetwork in WFP (http://vam.wfp.org/geonetwork), both at their Headquarters in Rome - Italy. Furthermore, WHO, UNEP, CGIAR and the Global Change Information and Research Centre (GCIRC) of China are working on GeoNetwork opensource implementations as their spatial information management capacity.

GeoNetwork Capabilities Present Version 2.03

Search index is capable of handling large amounts of metadata. The indexing is build using Jakarta Lucene. Support for metadata based on the ISO19115, FGDC and Dublin Core standards -This support includes: o storing and indexing of metadata in its original format o displaying search results in a uniform way o searching through the metadata in a uniform way o editing the different metadata standards online in default, advanced and XML mode o access to the full set of ISO19115 and FGDC metadata elements through the generic online editor o validation of metadata based on XSD schema's o import of XML formatted metadata and possible conversion of the input file through XSL transformation o batch import of XML formatted metadata and possible conversion of the input files through XSL transformation o generating of small and large thumbnails based on an input file in JPEG, PNG or GIF format (ISO19115 only). Metadata harvesting mechanism. -- The harvesting mechanism has the following characteristics: o The application can be scheduled to harvest metadata from other catalogues. (harvesting and access through Catalog Services for the Web 2 (CSW2) is under development and will be released in version 2.1 of GeoNetwork opensource) o The full set of query parameters used to search the GeoNetwork catalog are also available for harvesting jobs. o Harvesting can also harvest secured metadata, e.g. for interagency metadata sharing. o Harvested metadata provides instant access to metadata when searching while the data for download and related services remain at the originating agency. o Attribution logo of originating agency with every harvested metadata. Category system. Metadata can be moderated on a per node basis. This allows a node to group metadata that relate to the target audience, independently of the descriptions as provided by the metadata author. Featured metadata. Metadata can be defined as featured. Featured metadata will randomly appear on the homepage of the GeoNetwork opensource website. The refresh rate of featured metadata can be defined by the system administrator. Recently updated metadata. A list of most recently updated content is available from the homepage. Fully scalable user interface, adapting to the size of the browser window. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for most user interface style information. This allows for a quick customization of the GUI. Fully XML/XSLT based, separating content from presentation. XSL templates define the output format and lay out. Although currently only HTML is generated, other output formats can be generated at will through new XSLT templates. Global unique identifiers (UUID) generated for all new metadata records.

Metadata Template system. This system allows to quickly create new metadata entries. -- It provides the following functions: o A template can be fully customized online and can be pre-filled with repetitive content (contact information for example). o Templates can be searched in the same way normal metadata is searched. o Only editors and administrators have access to templates. o Templates can be created for specific user groups Email notification system to groups for triggered downloads of data sets. Online administration of Users, Groups and Categories. Online clean up of left over metadata Online administration of users by dedicated User Administrators (group specific) Z39.50 (OGC Catalog Services for the Web 1.0) Server and Client functionality. Migration application for the migration of GeoNetwork 1 based content into the new system. Support for publishing and using OGC Web Map Services and ESRI ArcIMS map services. User community website with a documentation center and software center available at http://geonetwork.sourceforge.net

Planned functionality for version 2.1

Version 2.1 will, beyond the functionality that has already been added, have the following new functionality: Privileges handling and metadata ownership (individual metadata ownership besides the group ownership) password encryption in database (including migration process update) Use of MEF format for data backup when deleting content Improve online help system (show help as tooltips) Improved search (filters for printable maps, raw data, reports, interactive maps) WEBDAV harvesting support (harvest metadata published on webdav folders) optionally: Improve workflow to allow review of content before it is published Add content review/ rating by users options to interface to allow users to rate content and search on these ratings. Integration of InterMap opensource 2.1, the web map client. A number of editor improvements Bug fixes Harvesting of GN 2.0 nodes content from a GN 2.1 node. This will be made available as an update to GeoNetwork 2.0.3 based nodes and will have the form of a single geonetwork.jar library to replace the current (v2.0.3) one.

Planned functionality for version 2.2

Version 2.2 will have the following added functionality: GUI improvements based on the outcome of two usability assessments Simple LDAP authentication to allow authentication against corporate authentication system Plain text version (for low bandwidth searching) CSW harvesting Open Archive Initiative (OAI) server and client (harvesting) support + administration interface Notification system for system administrators in GeoNetwork software: o A client thread to send a keep alive message to the server;

o Using the keep alive messages, the server provides a list of users/ hosts currently active. An administrator service will be added to show the list of connected users; o The new administrative page that displays the active users provides the administrator the option to send a message to all or single users; o The text message will be presented on the client browser; o A maintenance password will be used to avoid logins before a scheduled reboot, or while testing the system. This prevents users to connect to an unstable system.

InterMap improvements:
Export/print functionality to InterMap to export maps in pdf or geotiff format Export in GEOTIFF (image with internal geo-reference) Export in PDF format. Add a dialogue to set the title, north arrow, scale, page orientation, visible layer legends, copyright info Email this map to support, using Web Map Context support already available in InterMap The HTML based mail will provide: o Thumbnail of the map o A hyperlink that will open the embedded WMC context in the original InterMap instance. Updated documentation An updated DVD will be produced with this version of the GeoNetwork software. Under discussion but not confirmed InterMap improvements: Integration of the OpenLayers API in the client part InterMap server part to act as a WMS-T cascading server Support for KML export of a project, including adding comments with pins etc...

Annex 2 - Changes Needed in GeoNetwork Software

The following information covers a number of changes required to GeoNetwork to meet Australian needs. This is an initial set of requirements developed by Geoscience Australia. There may be other changes to meet the needs from other agencies and priorities may change as other needs are identified. The role of the GeoNetwork Users and Developers Group is to agree on the requirements and priorities. So the requirements described below should be considered indicative only.

Immediate Mandatory Items:

Any development must be fed back into the GeoNetwork open source development for use in future versions of that software. Documentation must be supplied to show all configuration and any other changes made to develop the interface. The simple and advanced search must be able to search the ASDD nodes using the Z3950 protocol. The advanced search shall include: o Free text search anywhere in the metadata record, o Select which ASDD nodes to search, o Select presentation type ie. XML or HTML, o Free text search on title, o Free text search on abstract, o Free text search on ANZLIC identifier with right truncation, o Pick list search on ANZLIC Search Word, o Pick list search on topic category, o Date search on dateStamp, metadata date, beginning date and / or ending date. o Spatial search by selecting: ANZLIC Geographic Extent Names (Supplied in a GML code catalogue XML File), or North, South, East and West bounding coordinates, or' Draw a bounding box on the interactive map. Client side code (JavaScript or Xforms) that automatically select items in one HTML select list (ANZLIC Search Words) when an item is selected in another HTML select list (topicCategory). This will be passed to the ASDD nodes in a zquery based on the correct Z3950 relation attributes. Files will be provided which identify which topic categories relate to which ANZLIC Search Words and visa versa. Configured to have the look and feel of the existing ASDD. Validate using ISO 19139 XSDs and Schematron. XSDs and Schematron will be provided. Default display will be HTML from ASDD nodes for full presentation of a metadata record. Support ANZLIC Metadata Profile XML for creating and presentation of metadata.

Items that can be developed in a phased process:

Display extents (bounding box initially then polygons if available) of metadata records that satisfy a search, which are shown in brief format, onto the interactive map. Select metadata records in full format by clicking on the extent displayed on the interactive map as defined in previous dot point. Have a connection from within the metadata record to the OSDM licence agreement to download the data. This will open up another window for the OSDM licence agreement HTML forms. Any metadata record that can use the OSDM licence agreement should have a button? shown next to the title of the metadata, shown in brief format, that links off to the OSDM licence agreement for downloading. Translate from ANZLIC V2 1.3.DTD XML into ANZLIC Metadata Profile XML (ISO 19139 XSD format) using an XSL. The XSL will be supplied by ANZLIC.

Optional items:
Present a check box next to the titles of those metadata records which provide WMS for the layer described by the metadata record. Allow the user to select many of the above check boxes to display the WMS images in the interactive map. Present these relevant WMS layers on the interactive map with the option of choosing the order of the layers. Use Xlinks to develop inheritance between metadata records. Allow the linking of an XML entity to anther XML entity using Xlinks. Resolve the Xlink on presentation and before indexing. Use Xforms to configure the presentation of the metadata entry tool. Presentation of full metadata records will be in another HTML window. Presentation of brief metadata record results will be in HTML frame on the same HTML page of the search form. Create the list of available WMS in the interactive map from the "services" metadata available from the interface. Mouse over ISO 19115 definitions for each of the elements. Hypertext link to the ANZLIC User Guidelines documentation for each of the elements.

User Interface
Geoscience Australia has also investigated options to improve the user interface to make it simpler and more user friendly. This information on possible interfaces can be made available to the GeoNetwork Users and Developers Group once it has been established.