Table of Contents

Overview

How to Participate

How to Observe

Important Links

Activity Plan

Overview

The OpenGIS Web Services Context Document Schema Interoperability
Experiment is initiated by cadcorp, DM Solutions,
GeoConnections/Natural Resources Canada, and IONIC Software. It is an Interoperability Experiment intended to an XML schema for encoding OpenGIS Web Services Context documents (OWS Context).

OWS Context documents are related to, but more powerful than, Web Map Context Documents (03-036r2).
The latter are limited to referencing OGC Web Map Services (WMS),
whereas the former can reference other OGC Web Services, e.g. Web
Feature Services (WFS), Web Coverage Services (WCS), etc.

How to Participate

Participation
means that you contribute materially to the execution of the
Interoperability Experiment. You must be an OGC member (any level will
do) to participate. Follow this link to find out how to join OGC.

Once a member, you must download and complete a Letter of Participation Intent using our Letter of Participation Intent template. You must also download and complete a Participant Agreement using our Participant Agreement template. Both of these documents shall then be sent by facsimile transmission to +1 812 334 0625 (or sent by electronic mail to techdesk@opengeospatial.org) by 2200 GMT on June 10, 2004. Originals shall then be sent by postal or express mail to:

Open GIS Consortium, Inc.
Technology Office
4899 N. Old SR 37
Bloomington, IN 47408 USA

Once
OGC receives the executed Participant Agreement (by any means), you
will be added to the project portal and email reflectors and you will
have access to all of the information needed to participate.

If
you have managed to complete your documentation by the deadline (June
10, 2004), you should attend the kick-off. The kickoff date will be
planned for the mid-June time frame and will be announced in the near
future. Your organization may join the initiative at any time during
its execution by submitting the aforementioned documentation.

How to Observe

Observer
status means that you have the ability to watch the project portal and
email reflector for the Interoperability Experiment, but that you do
not materially contribute to the initiative.You must be an OGC member
(any level will do) to observe. Follow this link to find out how to join OGC.

Once a member, you must download and complete an ObserverAgreement using our Observer Agreement template. This document shall then be sent by facsimile transmission to +1 812 334 0625 (or sent by electronic mail to techdesk@opengeospatial.org) by 2200 GMT on June 10, 2004. Originals shall then be sent by postal or express mail to:

Open GIS Consortium, Inc.
Technology Office
4899 N. Old SR 37
Bloomington, IN 47408 USA

Once
OGC receives the executed Observer Agreement (by any means), you will
be added to the project portal and email reflectors and you will have
access to all of the information needed to observe.

If you
have managed to complete your documentation by the deadline (June 10,
2004), you may attend the kick-off. The kickoff date will be planned
for the mid-June time frame and will be announced in the near future.
Your organization may join the initiative at any time during its
execution by submitting the aforementioned documentation.

Important Links

This IE will be restricted to using the following existing OGC specifications, as referenced in OpenGIS Technical Document Baseline (03-053r1):

Activity Plan

Technical Approach:

Under this IE, the primary focus is Testing and Integrating an XML
Schema that encodes reference to multiple types and instances of OGC
Web Services. The Development and Testing task will be to:

• create an XML Schema and accompanying XML instance documents
• to attempt to use these instance documents in multiple client applications
• to report the results of this usage in terms of success or failure and reasons for any failure

The IE will iterate over the Testing and Integration event and
Specification Development (Refinement) tasks until the results from the
Testing and Integration task yield no significant issues. It is
intended that this process take less than three cycles.

Testing and Integration

Each participant will be expected to create a methodology or software
that can read and/or write OWS Context documents and to share those
documents with the other participants. Participants are expected to
report their issues and bugs to the other participants via a Testing
and Integration Experiment (TIE) Report. The TIE Report allows
suggestions to be made for improvement to the OWS Context schema.

Specification Development (Refinement)

The Initiator organizations will refine the OWS Context schema based on
the feedback received during a Testing and Integration task.

Documentation

The Initiators will provide final documentation in terms of the OWS
Context schema once the cycles of testing and refinement have been
completed.. These will be considered the Deliverables for the project.

Deliverables:

This IE will result in three specific IE Reports:

1. OWS Context Schema
2. OWS Context instance documents used in the IE
3. All TIE Reports