The National Aeronautics and Space Administration invests in open geospatial interfaces to make its Earth observations, model outputs, and online processing services more accessible to its federal partners and other stakeholders.
Figure 1. NASA has deployed 30 Earth-Sun System spacecraft carrying approximately 80 instruments. (All images courtesy of
NASA)
For years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has worked to assimilate its research outputs of Earth
observation (see Figure 1) and predictions into the decision support systems of its federal partners and other stakeholders by using interoperability
standards that promote open information sharing and discovery.
Recently, NASA chose to assess the impact (positive or negative) of using open standards that enable geoscience interoperability
among its partnering agencies via an independent, industry-led return on interoperability investment (ROI) study. NASA's Geospatial
Interoperability Office (GIO) awarded a contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to conduct the study, which began in September 2004
and concluded with delivery of results to NASA in May 2005.
Study Methodology
The goal of the ROI study was to compare one government program, project, or enterprise that used open geospatial interface
standards (Case 1) and one government program, project, or enterprise that did not use open geospatial interface standards
(Case 2). The study did not reveal the identity of the programs.
Figure 2. Interfaces that implement OGC's OpenGIS Web Map Service Specification enable the overlay of geoscience data from
multiple Web Map Servers using only a browser. Those that implement the OpenGIS Web Feature Service Specification enable similar
access to multiple sources of vector-based geoscience data. Interfaces that implement OGC's OpenGIS Web Coverage Service Specification
enable access to multiple sources of complex earth imagery.
The Geospatial Interoperability Reference Model (GIRM v1.1, December 2003) — which is developed and maintained by the Federal
Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Geospatial Applications and Interoperability (GAI) Working Group (http://gai.fgdc.gov/girm/) — provided the interoperability standards by which Case 1 and Case 2 were evaluated. The study focused only on the use of
geospatial standards and specifications, including:
The abstract standards developed under the auspices of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical
Committee 211 (ISO/TC211)
The interface and encoding specifications developed by members of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC, see Figure 2)
The standards sponsored by FGDC.
Although implementation of geospatial standards may require the use of other standards (such as XML, HTTP, HTML, and SOAP),
the study did not consider those specifications. The focus remained on the use of geospatial standards.
Booz Allen Hamilton used the Value Measuring Methodology (VMM) to examine the life cycle costs and benefits of both projects.
The VMM is recognized as a U.S. Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council Best Practice and is particularly well suited
to evaluating the costs and benefits of government programs because it quantifies the costs and benefits that accrue outside
of a strict financial domain. VMM considered five value factors for this study:
