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421 lines
20 KiB
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" lang=
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"en-US">
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<head>
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<meta name="generator" content=
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"HTML Tidy for Linux/x86 (vers 1 September 2005), see www.w3.org" />
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content=
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"text/html; charset=utf-8" />
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<title>Geospatial Incubator Group</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.w3.org/2005/10/w3cdoc.css" type="text/css" media="screen"/><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://www.w3.org/Guide/pubrules-style.css"/><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://www.w3.org/2006/02/charter-style.css"/></head>
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<body>
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<div id="template">
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<ul id="navbar" style="font-size: 0.6em;">
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<li><a href="#scope">Scope and Objectives</a></li>
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<li><a href="#cases">Use Cases</a></li>
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<li><a href="#deliverables">Deliverables</a></li>
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<li><a href="#coordination">Dependencies</a></li>
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<li><a href="#communication">Communication</a></li>
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<li><a href="#decisions">Decision Policy</a></li>
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<li><a href="#patentpolicy">Patent Policy</a></li>
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<li><a href="#meetings">Meetings</a></li>
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<li><a href="#input">Input and Reference Materials</a></li>
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<li><a href="#about">About this Charter</a></li>
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</ul>
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<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/" shape="rect"><img alt="W3C" src=
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"/Icons/w3c_home.png" height="48" width="72" /></a> <a class=
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"domainlogo" href="http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/" shape=
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"rect"><img src="../images/incubator.png" alt=
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"Incubator Activity" /></a></p>
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<h1 id="title">Geospatial Incubator Group Charter</h1>
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<p class="mission">The <strong>mission</strong> of the <a href=
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"http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/geo/">Geospatial Incubator Group</a>,
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part of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/">Incubator
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Activity</a>, is to
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begin addressing issues of
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location and geographical properties of resources
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for the Web of today and tomorrow, by taking a concrete step to update the W3C GEO vocabulary, laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive geospatial ontology, and formulating a proposal for a W3C Local Web working group to develop recommendations to further the Local Web.
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</p>
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<div class="noprint">
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<p class="join"><a href="http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/39363/join">Join the Geospatial Incubator Group.</a></p>
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</div>
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<table class="summary-table">
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<tbody>
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<tr id="Duration">
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<th rowspan="1" colspan="1">End date</th>
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<td rowspan="1" colspan="1">23 Jun 2007</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Confidentiality</th>
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<td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Proceedings are <a href=
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"http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/comm.html#confidentiality-levels"
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shape="rect">public</a></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Initial Chair</th>
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<td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Joshua Lieberman (<a href=
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"mailto:jlieberman@traversetechnologies.com" >jlieberman@traversetechnologies.com</a>)</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Sponsoring Members</th>
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<td rowspan="1" colspan="1">
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<ul>
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<li>Open Geospatial Consortium (Raj Singh, <a href=
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"mailto:rsingh@opengeospatial.org">rsingh@opengeospatial.org</a>)</li>
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<li>SRI (David Martin, <a href="mailto:martin@AI.SRI.COM" >martin@AI.SRI.COM<span class=
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"c7">)</span></a></li>
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<li>USC ISI (Jerry Hobbs, <a href="mailto:hobbs@isi.edu">hobbs@isi.edu</a>)</li>
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<li>Stanford University (Deborah McGuinness, <a href=
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"mailto:dlm@ksl.stanford.edu" >dlm@ksl.stanford.edu</a>)</li>
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<li>Oracle Corporation (Xavier Lopez, <a href=
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"mailto:xavier.lopez@oracle.com">xavier.lopez@oracle.com</a>)</li>
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</ul>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Usual Meeting Schedule</th>
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<td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Telcons: Fortnightly<br />
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Ftf: 3-4 per year (<a href="#meetings">more on meetings</a>)</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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<div class="scope">
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<h2 id="scope">Scope and Objectives</h2>
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<p>Location and geographical properties of resources has always
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been something of a dilemma for the World Wide Web, which has
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served so well to unlink the global identity of a resource from its
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physical location on the globe. One of the Web's greatest values is
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its capacity for enabling the growth of communities which are not
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constrained by distance and geography. Nonetheless, physical
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location is at least an essential property if not a part of the
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identity of any real entity. When appropriate, the Local Web of
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resources identified by location and geography is an essential
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aspect of Web discovery and communication.</p>
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<p>Issues in geographical representation are many and often
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parallel those in the Web as a whole, from resource identifiers to
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machine-readable semantics. Just as there are both physical (IP)
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and conceptual (domain namespace) locators on the World Wide Web,
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there are physical (latitude-longitude coordinates and street
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addresses) and conceptual (placenames and political divisions)
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locators on the Local Web. Geospatial concepts and relationships
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are at once as possible and difficult to define with formal
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semantics as those which express any other resource meaning.
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Geospatial aspects of progress from the Web of text and tags to the
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Semantic Web are just as challenging and important.</p>
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<p>There are, however, unique aspects to the geospatial
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representation of information which merit special attention in the
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advancement of the Web as a whole. The map is not the terrain; a
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geographic coordinate pair is only a terse representation of a
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geographical entity. Something as simple as a geotagged Web
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page “a representation of a
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representation“ raises unresolved semantic,
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syntactic, and engineering issues which have until now hindered
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full development of the Local Web. Yet another set of issues is
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raised by the fact that it is not always
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desirable or “safe“ for world
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to know where a resource lives.
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Some of the gateways from the World Wide Web to the Local Web
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require gates and gatekeepers.</p>
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<h3>Objectives</h3>
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<p>The Geospatial XG has three objectives which address needs of the Local
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Web:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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<i>Immediate</i>: update and harmonization with
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GeoRSS of the GEO vocabulary, aka simplest useful geospatial
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ontology.
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</li>
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<li>
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<i>Short Term</i>: draft recommendations for a
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geospatial ontology focused on Web resources and tasks.
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</li>
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<li>
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<i>Longer Term</i>: draft a charter for a proposed W3C Local Web
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WG to address issues beginning with geotags and continuing towards
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geospatial enablement of the Semantic Web.
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h4>GEO:</h4>
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<p>The W3C Semantic Web Interest Group formulated in 2003 an
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initial <a href="/2003/01/geo/">RDF vocabulary for location</a> .
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The opportunities presented by RSS and Atom for geolocating
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lightweight information formats, together with advances in
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standardization of location encoding from the Open Geospatial
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Consortium (OGC) have prompted an update of this vocabulary in the
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form of <a href="http://www.georss.org/">GeoRSS</a>. This update
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both extends the expressiveness of the initial vocabulary and places
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it in a firmer context of OGC and ISO work on geographic
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information.</p>
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<h4>Geospatial Ontology</h4>
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<p>As enabling technologies for the Semantic Web have developed,
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such as RDF, OWL, SPARQL, and SWRL, much work has been done to
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build the ontologies required for expressing the common elements of
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disparate knowledge artifacts. This is particularly true in the
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realm of geospatial and temporal concepts and relationships, yet
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the work has not yet reached a level of either consensus or
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<i>actionability</i> which would allow it to be the basis of
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knowledge interoperability. In other words, it is not yet ready to
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support the functionality of a Geospatial Semantic Web, where the
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geographic properties of knowledge resources can be expressed,
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discovered, acted upon by machines, and understood by diverse
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communities.</p>
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<h4>W3C Local Web Working Group</h4>
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<p>A latitude-longitude coordinate pair may be the shortest path to
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an initial resource geo-identity, but issues of location and
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geography permeate virtually all areas in which the World Wide Web
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of physical entities is becoming richer and more functional. The
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emergence of geographic information science disciplines and
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standardization efforts by many organizations worldwide have shown
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how important it is to <i>get geography right</i>. A W3C Local Web
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Working Group would be the right place to develop the vocabularies,
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ontologies, rules, and practices to do this. A subsequent or
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adjacent Interest Group could potentially augment this effort by
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representing a Local Web perspective in other W3C activities. A Geospatial
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XG is proposed in part to undertake this sort of planning and
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charter development.</p>
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</div>
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<h2><a name="cases" id="cases"></a>Use Cases</h2>
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<p>The demand for flexible and powerful geospatial enablement of
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the Web is exemplified in the following use cases.</p>
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<h3><a name="use1" id="use1"></a>Use case 1: Find stuff nearby</h3>
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<p>Web publishers have tagged their HTML content with a variety of
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standard geographic properties, including absolute geometries,
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well-known placenames, street addresses, and geospatial domain
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addresses. Internet search engines have translated and indexed
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these geospatial properties according to location and content
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relationship. Web user Harold shares his location in a search
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request for available sports-related resources within 15 minutes
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travel time. An initial search for nearby transportation uncovers
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roads, trails, and a commuter rail line which define a travel time
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envelope. A second search finds a number of Web pages which refer
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to sports-related resources within the envelope. The resources
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include a sports bar within walking distance and the segment of a
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lake shore recreation area within driving distance. It does
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<i>not</i> include the travel blog of Maude, a former professional
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triathlete sitting at a cafe nearby, because the current blog entry
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is tagged by a geospatial domain name which can only be resolved to
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an absolute location by requests from an identified group of
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friends or emergency response organizations. Since the local time
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of the search is 9:15 pm and the lake park closes at 9 pm, the home
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page of the sports bar is listed first.</p>
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<h3><a name="use2" id="use2"></a>Use case 2: News of the world</h3>
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<p>Web news services provide their stories in the form of GeoRSS
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feeds. Sven at UNHCR is tasked with monitoring both new and known
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areas for refugee issues. He utilizes an aggregator service which
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plots on a world map the locations of public news items which also
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reference refugee issues. Sven's GeoRSS client also allows him to
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visualize private news feeds of current UNHCR activities and
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available relief resources. Sven is able to use several map
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visualization techniques to look at the combined distribution and
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nature of events referenced by the public and private news feeds.
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Clicking on a particular entry, he brings up that entry's source
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news story or internal report. Once he has identified a significant
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collection of events and commented on it, he saves a Web map
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context document (WMC) with GeoRSS annotations, specific Web Map
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Server requests, and general map tile references to his weblog. UN
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colleagues who subscribe to Sven's weblog feed receive a GeoRSS
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news item outlining his area of interest and follow it to bring up
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the news map he has constructed for them.</p>
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<h3>Use case 3: New knowledge from old geography</h3>
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<p>A new educational initiative has published to the Web in
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geo-enabled form the results of many years of scientific and
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cultural study related to Breechcloth National Monument. Joe, a
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Park Service volunteer organizes virtual tours by publishing Web
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pages which reference those Web resources related to a particular
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theme along popular hiking trails. Mary, a park visitor, is able to
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assemble her own personal tours by drawing a path of interest on a
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visitor center kiosk and searching for resources of a particular
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time and theme of interest. Since the wireless connectivity in the
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Monument is not yet widespread, she downloads the tour into her
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GPS-equipped phone to take along. Her personal tour includes
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geoweblog entries and photos posted by visitors two years previous
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at a time when heavy rains caused many unusual plants to bloom
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along her chosen (and now quite dusty) path. Another tour resource
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is a page describing the site of a rare archaeological find. Mary is
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able to view the photographs and drawings on her phone, but the
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public page is only tagged with a rather large bounding box to
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reduce the risk of a visitor finding and damaging the site itself.
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Park personnel and researchers have access to a separate page
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tagged with the actual GPS coordinates of the site.</p>
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<h3><a name="use4" id="use4"></a>Use case 4: Follow the
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geography</h3>
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<p>Alice is preparing a grant proposal to support a new recycling
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initiative in Nepotist County. She wants to research county-level
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recycling programs worldwide. Firing up her semantic search client,
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she initiates a SPARQL query which includes among others the
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concepts of "county",
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"spatialScaleOf", and
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"recycling". Referencing a
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geospatial ontology, the query agent infers further geospatial
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concepts such as county instances and the names of county
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equivalents such as "parish" within
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the state of Louisiana. Inferred queries are passed on to other
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query agents which resolve county locations and synonyms, as well
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as concepts related to "recycling"
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such as "waste disposal",
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"sanitation", and
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"reuse". Filter agents reason on
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"spatialScaleOf" to eliminate
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discovered knowledge which is too limited in scale. Semantic
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similarity analysis finally returns to Alice information about a
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recycling program only two counties over which is a good model for
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her proposal but has been sparsely documented as
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"regional resource recovery". The
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query agent also processes her personal context with the query and
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returns unexpected references to two foundations with new programs
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to fund combined recycling and clean government initiatives.</p>
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<h3><a name="useSum" id="useSum"></a>Use case summary</h3>
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<p>These use cases serve to illustrate that tagging Web pages with
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latitude-longitude coordinates is only a starting point to the
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geospatial representations, relationships, resources, and
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interfaces which will form the functional basis of the Local
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Web.</p>
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<div>
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<h2 id="deliverables">Deliverables</h2>
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<ol>
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<li>
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<p>An updated, harmonized GEO vocabulary.</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>Report of initial Geospatial Ontology recommendations.</p>
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</li>
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<li>A draft Local Web Working Group charter.</li>
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</ol>
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<p>The objectives of the XG involve mainly the assembly and
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reconciliation of materials which have already been developed in a
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number of forums; it is expected that they can be accomplished in
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6-8 months.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="dependencies">
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<h2 id="coordination">Dependencies</h2>
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<p>The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc (<a href=
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"http://www.opengeospatial.org/">OGC</a>) is an international
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industry consortium of 310 companies, government agencies and
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universities participating in a consensus process to develop
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publicly available model, interface and encoding specifications for
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geospatial information. OpenGIS® specifications support
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interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and
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location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC interoperability
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initiatives help members to develop new methods of distributed Web
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computing which would not be possible without agreement on how to
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represent, exchange, and operate on geographic concepts. Versions
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of many OGC specifications have subsequently been developed through
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collaborative agreement into <a href="http://www.iso.ch/">ISO</a>
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standards.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="communication">
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<h2 id="communication">Communication</h2>
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<p>
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All technical work is on a public mailing list
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public-xg-geo@w3.org (<a href=
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"http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-geo/">archive</a>)
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and Web pages. The mailing list will provide an
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important part of the communication both internally and
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externally.</p>
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<p>The group's Member-only list is member-xg-geo@w3.org (<a href=
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"http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/member-xg-geo/">archive</a>)</p>
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<p>Information about the group (deliverables, participants,
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face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/geo/">Geospatial Incubator Group
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home page</a>.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="decisions">
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<h2 id="decisions">Decision Policy</h2>
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<p>This Incubator Group makes decisions by consensus, manages
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dissent and maintains standing of its participants according to the
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<a href="/Consortium/Process/">W3C Process Document</a>.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="patent">
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<h2 id="patentpolicy">Patent Policy</h2>
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<p>This Incubator Group provides an opportunity to share
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perspectives on the topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds
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Incubator Group participants of their obligation to comply with
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patent disclosure obligations as set out in <a href=
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"http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy/#sec-Disclosure" shape=
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"rect">Section 6</a> of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Incubator
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Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when
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Incubator Group participants review Recommendation-track
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specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure
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obligations do apply.</p>
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<p>Incubator Groups have as a goal to produce work that can be
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implemented on a Royalty Free basis, as defined in the <a href=
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"http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy/" shape="rect">W3C
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Patent Policy</a>.</p>
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<p>For more information about disclosure obligations for this
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group, please see the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/"
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shape="rect">W3C Patent Policy Implementation</a>.</p>
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</div>
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<h2 id="meetings">Meetings</h2>
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<p>In an effort to minimize costs, face to face meetings will be
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co-located with other meetings that a significant number of
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participants are attending. Examples include planned spatial
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ontology workshops in May and June, the SeBGIS'06 workshop in
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October, as well as the Terra Cognita workshop at ISWC'2006 in
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November.</p>
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<h2><a name="input" id="input"></a>Input and Reference
|
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Materials</h2>
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<dl>
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<dt>GEO</dt>
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<dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/">http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/</a></dd>
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<dt>GeoRSS</dt>
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<dd><a href="http://www.georss.org/">http://www.georss.org</a></dd>
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<dt>WMC</dt>
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<dd><a href=
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"https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=8618">https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=8618</a></dd>
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<dt>GML</dt>
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<dd><a href=
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"http://www.opengis.net/gml/">http://www.opengis.net/gml/</a></dd>
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<dt><a name="rdf-cl" id="rdf-cl"></a>OWL</dt>
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<dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/">http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/</a></dd>
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<dt>SPARQL</dt>
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<dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/</a></dd>
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<dt>RSS</dt>
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<dd><a href=
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"http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss">http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</a>
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and <a href=
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"http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/">http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/</a></dd>
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<dt><a name="atom" id="atom"></a>ATOM</dt>
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<dd><a href=
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|
"http://atomenabled.org/">http://atomenabled.org/</a></dd>
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</dl>
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<h2 id="about">About this Charter</h2>
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|
<p>This charter for the Geospatial Incubator Group has been created
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|
according to the <a href=
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|
"http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/procedures" shape=
|
|
"rect">Incubator Group Procedures documentation</a>. In the event
|
|
of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any
|
|
charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take
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|
precedence.</p>
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|
<hr />
|
|
<address>
|
|
<a href=
|
|
"http://www.traversetechnologies.com/">Joshua Lieberman</a>
|
|
<<a href=
|
|
"mailto:jlieberman@traversetechnologies.com">jlieberman@traversetechnologies.com</a>>
|
|
</address>
|
|
<p class="copyright"><a rel="Copyright" href=
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|
"http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright" shape=
|
|
"rect">Copyright</a>© 2006 <a href="http://www.w3.org/"
|
|
shape="rect"><acronym title=
|
|
"World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym></a>
|
|
<sup>®</sup> (<a href="http://www.csail.mit.edu/" shape=
|
|
"rect"><acronym title=
|
|
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</acronym></a> ,
|
|
<a href="http://www.ercim.org/" shape="rect"><acronym title=
|
|
"European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics">ERCIM</acronym></a>
|
|
, <a href="http://www.keio.ac.jp/" shape="rect">Keio</a>), All
|
|
Rights Reserved.</p>
|
|
<p>$Date: 2006/07/06 16:06:23 $</p>
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|
</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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