GEOSS Clearinghouse WG

Scope of WG

This working group concerns itself with the design, implementation, and operation of the GEOSS Registry and Clearinghouse services, as well as the metadata schemas which they process. Information on working group activities is here .

Clearinghouse Concept

1. Community catalogs are registered with Components at the GEOSS Component and Service Registry.
2. GEOSS Clearinghouse performs search of GEOSS Service Registry using CSW 2.0.2 ebRIM interface to identify candidate catalog services (Z39.50 and CSW all profiles) that can be searched.
3. Catalog search entrypoints are internally managed by the Clearinghouse as the active catalog list.
4. GEOSS Registry catalog interface is included as a registered catalog service target. Services registered are discoverable by GEOSS Clearinghouse search.
5. Catalog entrypoints are tested and full responses (FGDC, ISO, other?) are validated. Invalid services or responses are identified and notification is stored for administrative action.
6. Catalog is assessed as to whether it is more appropriate to harvest or to stage parallel, distributed query based on responsiveness, catalog size, network issues, other. Determination or choice is up to Clearinghouse implementation.
7. Search is received by GEOSS Clearnghouse from Web Portal or external application client as a CSW or Z39.50-GEO request.
8. Search is either distributed to remote catalogs, resolved by local cache, or a mixture of both.
9. Brief responses are marshaled and returned to requesting client as XML.
10. Summary responses are styled into Dublin Core-like CSW 2.0.2 responses (similar to detail of ebRIM).
11. Full responses are styled into ISO 19139 XML metadata or ebRIM metadata.

WG Tasks

1. Community Catalogs
1. Register community catalogs
2. Evaluate query protocols and record types
3. Identify key catalogs
1. Geodata.gov
2. NASA ESG
3. Geonetwork
4. ESA
5. GBIF
2. Clearinghouse Deployment
1. Stand up empty catalogs as clearinghouse candidates
1. ESRI
2. Compusult
3. Geonetwork
2. Verify binding to GEOSS Registry
3. Query GEOSS Registry for community catalogs and verify their bindings
4. Initial harvest of key catalog holdings including services capabilities.
3. Federation Implementation
1. Narrative use case for clearinghouse distributed queries
2. Characterization of candidate harvest / distribution / broker capabilities
3. Determine common set of broker strategies for key catalogs
4. Operational Testing and Analysis
1. Collect key catalog queries from scenarios
2. Compare query results against each clearinghouse candidate
3. Report gaps in query expressiveness, results, scenario discovery needs
5. Portal - Clearinghouse Workflow
1. Develop joint portal - clearinghouse use case
2. Cross-test bindings and queries of portal candidates versus clearinghouse candidates
3. Refine clearinghouse requirements
6. Scenario Support and Demo Capture
1. Exercise discovery elements of scenarios using clearinghouses
2. Report discovery gaps
3. Capture demo of registration - harvest - discovery - binding flow

Activities of WG

Active collaboration is being carried on by WG participants here . Participants may register for the collaboration site here . The results of the group's work will be posted back to this page.

Other links:

• GEOSS Standards Registry
• GEOSS Service Registry client
• GEOSS Service Registry binding information