Stakeholder Statement on the NIMA Geospatial
Information Infrastructure Plan

University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS)

I. Introduction to UCGIS

The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) is a not-for-profit organization of universities and other research institutions dedicated to advancing the understanding of geographic processes and spatial relationships through improved theory, methods, technology, and data. Member institutions have the opportunity to participate in reviewing and setting national research priorities in geographic information science and related specialties. The UCGIS goals are:

• Provide ongoing research priorities for advancing the theory and methods in geographic information science
• Assess the current and potential contributions of GIS to national scientific and public policy issues
• Expand and strengthen geographic information science education at all levels
• Promote the ethical use of and access to geographic information
• Provide the organizational infrastructure to foster collaborative interdisciplinary research in geographic information science
• Foster geographic information and analysis in support of such national needs as:
  The National Spatial Data Infrastructure
  Global environmental quality and change
  International economic competitiveness
  Efficiency, effectiveness and equity in all levels government
  Improving democratic participation
  Monitoring public safety, public health, and environmental pollution
  Maintaining world leadership in basic science, mathematics, and engineering

The UCGIS is open to input from scientists and scholars in all disciplines involved in geographic information science in member institutions. A list of current membership in the UCGIS is Appendix A. The UCGIS homepage is available on the www at: www.ucgis.org.

II. Justification for UCGIS Participation as a NIMA Stakeholder

The UCGIS represents many of the leading GIS research and educational institutions in the United States. These institutions developed and/or provided the setting for the initial ideas, concepts, algorithms and products in geographic information science that are used currently for a variety of applications, including military. Our membership includes scientists actively assisting NIMA and its stakeholders in many areas of geographic information science. A number of research projects are ongoing at UCGIS institutions which can contribute to NIMA's effort to achieve its objectives in the future.

Many private sector innovations and firms in the GIS field can be traced to research and course instruction undertaken at one of our member institutions. Our universities provide many of the students that will lead the geographic information science field into the next century both in the governmental and private sectors. The UCGIS membership houses numerous ROTC programs which could be tailored to prepare incoming military officers for the revolution in GIS support of military operations at all levels.

The UCGIS membership are long-time users of NIMA (DMA) geographic data, algorithms, and analysis products for research and education. We will continue to be consumers or clients of NIMA into the future relying on NIMA products and services. In addition, our members are significant users of broader spin-offs of previous defense-related infrastructure developments, such as the Internet and GPS.

The university research community has a great vested interest in the future directions of NIMA. The UCGIS represents an ever increasing constituency of institutions in the university research community. The UCGIS can serve as a formal link between this community and NIMA. Such a link will advance the NIMA Geographic Information Infrastructure Plan (GII) and the broader DOD information programs in many ways.

III. Convergence of UCGIS Research Priorities and NIMA Priorities

Review of the GII and the IPT clearly indicates a considerable number of mutual interests between the UCGIS and NIMA. During 1996, UCGIS formalized ten research priorities for geographic information science under the following titles (These priorities are discussed in greater detail on the UCGIS homepage).

• Cognition of Geographic Information
• Scale
• Uncertainty in Spatial Data and GIS-based Analyses
• Spatial Data Acquisition and Integration
• Extensions to Geographic Representation
• Interoperability of Geographic Information
• Distributed Computing
• Spatial Analysis in a GIS Environment
• The Future of the Geospatial Information Infrastructure
• GIS and Society  

The multitude of interests and research needs represented in our multi-disciplinary consortium were considered in this formulation of research priorities. Not too surprisingly for those active in the GIS research arena, there is a great correspondence between the identified UCGIS research priorities and NIMA research directions. Many of the research problems in the GIS field are basic in nature and their solutions have applicability to a multitude of applications.

In the following discussion, we provide some brief perspectives on the shared interests between UCGIS and NIMA's GII. The attempt is not to parallel each UCGIS priority with a perceived NIMA research direction. However, examples of this correspondence should provide insights for joint basic and applied research initiatives between UCGIS members and NIMA in the future.

Problems in the conceptualization and implementation of the GII data framework are representative of the research questions of scale, uncertainty, and spatial data acquisition. The multiple uses of the GII, from an urban environment to the strategic level, require solutions to the problems involved in primary source data, scale, database generalization, and sampling for the different phenomena in the requisite coverages. These problems exist not only in the spatial sampling frame, but in the temporal frame, as well. Populating the NIMA coverages in the production efforts requires answers to the same questions in spatial data acquisition and uncertainty.

Many UCGIS constituents work in research in feature extraction from remotely sensed data and the problems of accuracy and conflation. Fundamental work remains on uncertainty in geographic data and propagation of uncertainty in the conflation and modeling processes. Surprisingly, only the spatial accuracy component in geographic data appears in the GII plans while the uncertainty of geographic data is missing.

Consideration of these elements is critical in the deployment of human forces and the use of smart weapons that require real time, spatially aware sensors and automated interpretation and decision making. For example, generation of mobility networks and view sheds for lines of communication require consideration of data scale, spatial and temporal accuracy, and uncertainty in feature labeling, spatial analytics and accuracy. The use of smart weapons, such as the next generation of cruise missiles, either guided real-time by staff or autonomous, must consider these same elements for flexible and effective targeting and minimization of incorrect strikes.

Due to the eclectic nature of universities, we are confronted by problems involving the meshing of multidisciplinary-multirepresentational geospatial data in a multiplatform environment with severe resource limitations on a daily basis. Out of necessity we have been forced to innovate within complex environments of interoperability. This is similar to the situation before NIMA in its quest for more open, flexible solutions rather than closed, stovepipe solutions of the past.

One of the demands on NIMA resources for the future is to service a global military information system that scales to the tactical level, increasing the need for GIS products on localized and urban areas and more need for cultural GIS products to effectively deal with increasingly complex human mosaics, like Bosnia. The framework creation, update, and access problems in NIMA represent examples of fundamental problems within the UCGIS research priorities on interoperability, distributed computing, scale and spatial data acquisition and integration.

UCGIS members research efforts in emergency response, vehicle tracking, and vehicle routing, and others share similar temporal demands as in the warfighter rapid response context. The interests of many UCGIS constituents is focused on the extraction of information from an integration of geospatial data or the modeling requirements of a diverse set of applications. The problems of massive data bases, the fusion of multiple source of geographic data, spatial-temporal modeling, and the need for robust analytical capabilities are fundamentally the same as those in the GII.

Many of the applications problems being researched in universities for civilian purposes have military analogs. University research in algorithms for spatial analysis over a network is directly applicable to the focused logistics for precision engagement support. Solution of these problems across the conceptual network or an urban street network will add to solution across a military supply road network or a cross-country movement situation.

The UCGIS members are interested in the same fundamental questions of how humans learn about geographic environments, how they extract information from all forms of geographic data, and how such performance is affected by training and experience. We hope to use findings from such proposed work in modification of the educational process, the design of interfaces, and the development of autonomous "intelligent" agents. Ultimately, we foresee new data models for representing space, time, and processes of geographic data. These interests are obviously similar to the framework viewing and access needs in GII as they would be in other existing war-fighter type efforts.

IV. Relationship of NIMA Services and Products to Universities and other Research/Educational Institutions

As indicated elsewhere, a healthy university research and training effort can make a major contribution to NIMA's and DOD's long term success. Enlightened policies on access to products and services can have a profound impact on university institutions. While it is clearly understood that NIMA's role is to provide military support, NIMA plays an important role in the rapidly expanding field of civilian geographic information science.

Terrain data that is used in research and classrooms across the nation comes directly or indirectly from NIMA. Imagery from NIMA and other military programs provides essential teaching and research materials at affordable costs. In the future, the NIMA policy on data, access to geospatial data infrastructure, algorithms, analytical products will profoundly affect all universities, including UCGIS members.

An upcoming case is the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) funded by NIMA. The SRTM will deliver detailed, consistent terrain data for much of the globe in a short data-take time. The policy for public distribution of these data and resultant products will be extremely important to the civilian research community. NIMA policies and programs on timing of release, scale, accuracy and processing of these terrain data and other imagery products are crucial to their potential use in civilian research and education.

As NIMA collaborates increasingly with the private sector in joint business ventures, UCGIS has concerns over the control of proprietary rights to resultant data and products, even though these data and products were financed by U.S. taxpayers. NIMA must balance the demands by private firms for proprietary rights with the essential role of NIMA in providing products to the university research and educational communities. If NIMA data and products become unavailable or too expensive for use in our educational systems, this will undermine the long term development of our scientific base.

The reliance on the private sector to guide the NIMA future certainly has advantages. However, this approach may constrain thinking to shorter term strategies (governed by annual profitability or congressional appropriations) and those within the capabilities of a few very active private sector partners in the GII process. The union of UCGIS members with NIMA, private sector participants and the other stakeholders would contribute to a longer term perspective for the GII that is not linked to any particular conceptual approach or technology.

V. Overview Assessment

In general, our review of the NIMA IPT and GII statements indicate that more thought should be given to the future of geographic information science across the entire military setting. Meeting the needs of C4ISR from the tactical to the strategic levels requires a geospatial framework with a multitude of mission specific data sets. Given the speed of scientific, geopolitical and technological change, the future ranges from a few months to a few years. Much of the NIMA focus seems to be on the automation of the process for data acquisition and creation of their existing products. While this is essential, more thought should be on anticipation of the demands on NIMA given the changing world and the way these changes will manifest themselves in warfare. The focus should emphasize an information systems approach rather than an individual product approach: on creating an agency that is more flexible to changing military needs, technologies and the world situation.

Currently, efforts in the various services are being undertaken to forecast the future, such as the Air Force's 2025 exercise. It would seem useful for NIMA's plan should assess the various service's visions of the future and work toward a production process that can adapt rapidly to respond to the envisioned military functionalities of the future.

In summary, the research interests, as well as the educational role, of the UCGIS overlap with the basic and applied research and educational needs of the NIMA GII. Fundamental basic research in many of the UCGIS research priorities would have benefits to the research needs and the resulting implementation of the GII. A collaborative relationship could leverage funding and satisfy the foci of the broader GIS community, while benefiting the GII.

The UCGIS interests in NIMA's GII go well beyond the predominately military function of the infrastructure. Undoubtedly, the infrastructure will impact our constituent's interests in the emerging paradigm of environmental intelligence, the role of NIMA in emergency response to natural hazards, and the use of national assets and other geospatial data for the management of domestic resources, economic development and betterment of society.

VI. Possibilities for a Formal Relationship Between UCGIS and NIMA

The UCGIS envisions an important contribution to NIMA goal and policy setting activities. Our wide representation provides a reservoir of expertise with a broad perspective that would be extremely useful to NIMA. Using UCGIS as a link to the university community gives NIMA an efficient communication channel to foster NIMA's research, educational and outreach programs.

As referred to in the GII for "prime the pump" activities, it is believed that the UCGIS can partner with NIMA and its private sector partners in research collaborations and proof-of-concept demonstration projects. The combined research talents of these collaborators focused on fundamental and applied research questions could lead to unequaled progress in geographic information science.

The UCGIS can provide relatively unbiased assessment of potential innovations, proposed products and services and performance of programs in progress. The UCGIS can act as an broker to identify those in the university community most capable and willing to undertake these activities. This brokerage role would be in processing RFQs and RFPs for competitive research initiatives, selection of single source contractors and the selection of experts for review panels, such as the EXRAND committee for image acquisition and exploitation.

In the educational arena, UCGIS institutions can develop training programs, courses and materials to meet the needs for education and training in NIMA and DOD. UCGIS members have conducted a virtual seminar this past year and are active in distance learning activities focused on GIS. Also ROTC programs in universities appear to be a means of educating future officers about modern geographic information science prior to their becoming active duty. As geospatial framework data and the geospatial information system transcends virtually all occupational specializations in the military, this pre-duty training could be very important for all future officers.

The UCGIS can support research initiatives in Congress and with federal and state agencies that serve the mutual (UCGIS and NIMA) goals for research. Many of the research priorities are basic issues that can have multiple representations and applications. Research into them can be beneficial to both military and civilian interests.

NIMA should consider that public support for its mission is enhanced when military developments, such as GPS, make their way into the civilian domain. UCGIS members will be primary recipients of these transfers. These universities can lead in the technology and knowledge dissemination and use by the public. The involvement of UCGIS as a national entity, and the individual UCGIS institutions across the nation can support continuation and expansion of NIMA's mission at both local and national levels.

VII. Coordination of UCGIS with the Open GIS Consortium (OGC)

The Open GIS Consortium has been created and supported by the Department of Defense and the private sector to be an integral participant of the GII process. The UCGIS recognizes that it must work within this framework. UCGIS is eager to participate with the activities of the Open GIS Consortium in the development of the GII. This collaboration represents an unique opportunity for the private sector and the academic research sector to work with the federal government in pursuit of the best possible future for NIMA and our nation's defense. This collaboration will foster the inclusion of a wide spectrum of creative energy and views into the GII process. It is suggested that the OGC and UCGIS initiate a process to foster this collaboration.

Comments or questions should be directed to:

Jerome Dobson, President UCGIS
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
jed@ornl.gov

Thomas Palmerlee, Executive Director UCGIS
execdir@ucgis.org

Lead Authors for Stakeholder Document

George Hepner, Ph.D.
University of Utah
George.Hepner@geog.utah.edu

Michael E. Hodgson, Ph.D.
University of South Carolina
hodgsonm@garnet.cla.sc.edu

Appendix A

Member Institutions

American Congress of Surveying and Mapping
Association of American Geographers
University of Arizona
Boston University
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Berkeley
Clark University
University of Colorado
University of Delaware
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Georgia
Hunter College, City University of New York
Louisiana State University
University of Maine
University of Maryland
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Michigan
Michigan State University
University of Minnesota
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
State University of New York at Buffalo
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Ohio State University
Oregon State University
Pennsylvania State University
Rutgers University
University of South Carolina
San Diego State University
Syracuse University
Texas A&M at Corpus Christi
University of Utah
University of Washington
West Virginia University
University of Wisconsin, Madison
University of Wyoming