Desired Characteristics of Air Quality Data Systems

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Desired Characteristics of Air Quality Data Systems

Chapter text here.

Comments from Data Summit Workshop

Group A2: Enabling Data Access

Data system capabilities. These five information capabilities reflect the breakout’s sense of the capabilities that are foundational to enabling data access that either don’t exist or can be improved upon. An improved ‘system’ would:

1. Making access to data the standard expectation for government funded data;
2. Increase access to orphan or gray data ;
3. Include new classes of data such as model outputs;
4. Provide easy access to relevant archived/versioned data;
5. Be robust and stable to so that application developers and their funders would be confident in relying on such a system, even though they do not own it; and
6. Be consistently described

Principles:

• The system would assume that information is always accessible when data owners define appropriate, and ownership and stewardship responsibilities are established. This would include versioned and archived information.
• The system will enable user feedback in all parts of Data Value Chain and be consistently described.
• The system and its participants will adhere to a community defined and governed suite of standards/conventions.

Community Actions:

• clarify ownership and stewardship responsibilities,
• must assure that when data is accessed credit is received when credit is due, ,
• work as a community to define the expectation of data accessibility by type of data.
• establishing a standard mechanisms for data discovery and description
• identifying what in the system can and should be standardized.
• Learn from the experience of partner who have been working these areas ahead of us.

Group B2: Data Processing and Integration

Data system capabilities. Group B2 discussed data processing and integration. Group B2 identified three priority information capabilities:

1. Providing value-added functionality including filtering, aggregation, transformation, fusion, and Pre and Post processing QA/QC
2. Enabling Feedback on version changes, measures on performance from community and automated value added services (see above), and communication of assessments for suitability for use.
3. Establishing standard protocols for data and service access. Starting point for these standards are those adopted by the OpenGIS and GEOSS, including: Web Coverage Services (WCS); Web Feature Services (WFS); Web Map Service (WMS)

Principles:

• Provide adequate information to end-user application developers to allow appropriate development;
• Provide knowledge and insight in post processing and analysis;
• Accommodate Metadata demands;
• Have reliable and robust value added services; and
• Be stably governed including service level agreements where necessary.

Community Actions:

• Inreach and outreach. Inreach by increasing visibility within partner agencies, specifically mentioned was EPA. Outreach would include providing ‘layman’ explanations and working to relate/link the efforts of this community to parallel groups and projects.
• importance of continuing this process including implementing a governance mechanism to convene the community in a fashion that allows decision making.
• Identification and execution of a pilot, candidates included remounting capabilities of the Health Effects Institute or establishing a CAP for an specific AQ event class