The OGC membership process is operationally organized into groups and subgroups, each group having a specified role and level of responsibility. There are three major groups, called Committees: The Technical, the Planning and the Strategic Management Advisory Committees.
The Technical Committee is responsible for all aspects of the formal consensus OGC specification process. This includes:
- Coordinate development of and modifications to the OpenGIS Abstract Specification;
- Coordinate development and adoption of OpenGIS Implementation Specifications;
- Act on specification change proposals (acceptance, rejection, and conditional acceptance);
- Many responsibilities concerning evaluation, approval and recommendations of various documents and proposals.
Above all, the Technical Committee provides an open forum for professional discussion of issues and items related to the consensus development and/or evaluation and approval of specifications that provide the ability to build and deploy interoperable geospatial solutions in the larger IT domain. The TC also has methodology in place to govern its composition, its meetings and meeting agendas, and voting procedures.
In order to carry out the business of the TC in a timely manner, three types of subgroups of the TC may be formed. These groups address the four major needs for activity within the TC:
- To deal with procedural and definitional tasks (subcommittees, SC);
- To work on new OpenGIS Specification or Abstract Specifications that have been proposed through the OGC RFC or RFP process; (Working Group)
- To discuss specific technology or user domain requirements for interoperability (Working Group);
- Single-purpose groups to work on revision of Adopted Specifications (revision working groups, RWG);
There are two Technical Committee Representatives to the Planning Committee. Currently those Representatives are:
- Graham Vowles, Ordnance Survey, UK.
- Pier Giorgio Marchetti, ESA.
For more information regarding the roles, responsibilities and processes of the OGC Technical Committee, visit the Technical Committee Policies and Procedures.