Interoperability Working Group (2004 — 2013)

The Interoperability Working Group was formed to develop data standards to facilitate the query and exchange of geological information between data providers for environmental, scientific, legal and social purposes. The ultimate objective of the working group was to enable seamless integration over the internet of geological information hosted at different agencies in varied formats. The working group conducted several testbeds to test the viability of technologies and standards within the context of individual agency activities.

The specific objectives of the working group were:

• to develop a conceptual model of geoscientific information drawing on existing data models
• to implement an agreed subset of this model in an agreed schema language
• implement an XML/GML encoding of the model subset
• develop a testbed to illustrate the potential of the data model for interchange
• identify areas that require standardised classifications in order to enable interchange

The Interoperability Working Group comprised several task groups to address specific aspects of the work:

• GeoSciML Design task group designed the GeoSciML data model and XML schemas for transfer of geological data. The work of the GeoSciML task group is being carried forward by the CGI/OGC GeoSciML Standards Working Group.
• Use Cases and Requirements task group developed technical goals for GeoSciML by describing new use-cases and requirements;
• Service Architecture task group developed and documented the formal architecture required to deliver GeoSciML services
• Implementation Testbed task group coordinated interoperability testbeds using GeoSciML;
• Geoscience Concept Definitions task group was responsible for designing vocabulary services that satisfy the requirements of GeoSciML. The work of this task group has been merged with the Multilingual Thesaurus Working Group into the Geoscience Terminology Working Group.
• Outreach and Technical Assistance task group provided advice and assistance to direct collaborators, assisting them to deploy conformant GeoSciML Services.
• EarthResourceML task group developed the CGI data model for mineral occurrences and mines data, based on the Australia/NZ mineral deposits model. This task group has now been elevated to a CGI working group.

Material developed by the Interoperability Working Group, including the GeoSciML and EarthResourceML UML models, XML/GML schemas, instance documents, documentation, and vocabularies are available through the GeoSciML, EarthResourceML, and Geoscience Terminology Working Group web pages.