The Australian Cooperative Research Center for Spatial Information (CRCSI) has joined forces with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) through the signing of a memorandum of understanding. The relationship with OGC will be especially strong with the CRCSI’s Spatial Infrastructures research program.
“We’ll be using OGC and other open standards in our research to help direct development of the next generation of spatial infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand”, says Dr Geoff West, Science Director of the CRCSI’s Spatial Infrastructures research program.
CRCSI input to the OGC will inform the direction of research for existing and new OGC standards. Dr West explained, “By using OGC standards, we ensure our research communicates directly with other systems.”
The agreement will leverage the collective expertise of many of the CRCSI’s partnering organisations to position research outputs for rapid utilization.
Further to the linked research goals, CRCSI and OGC will share outreach and marketing materials to increase awareness of the increasing influential role of open standards in location based research. Joint activities may include introduction of interoperability requirements into the OGC consensus process, and the sponsorship/funding of CRCSI research interoperability and compliance testing requirements in OGC’s Interoperability Program testbeds and pilot initiatives.
“We are particularly pleased with this new partnership. It will expand our reach internationally and accelerate the rate at which we learn about and contribute to international standards developments” says Peter Woodgate, CEO of the CRCSI.
Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the OGC noted, “We are delighted to have CRCSI’s participation and leadership in the OGC international process. The impact of research organisations like CRCSI in the OGC international process is significant. Research organisations understand the power of open standards to support the rapid transition of research results into broad community application. They also benefit by partnering with other OGC public and private sector members to cooperatively advance important research objectives. ”