FGDC Subcommittee on
Cultural and Demographic Data (SCDD)

Meeting Minutes

Minutes from the November 15, 1999 Meeting

Representatives in Attendance

• Mr. Broome briefed SCDD members on two topics discussed at the Tuesday, November 2, FGDC Coordination Group meeting:
  • As part of the Public Safety Information Initiative, the efforts resulting from the Crime Mapping Task Force are being used by the Public Safety group to tie together public safety issues that concern federal/state/local governments.
  • One of the FGDC Demonstration Projects, the Upper Susquehanna/Lachawanna project has received support and assistance from Congressman Kanjorski's office. The continuation of the federal champion's support of these projects was stressed.
  • Coordination Group Meeting Minutes are available in more detail on the FGDC website.

• Fred Broome also reported on the recent FGDC Standards Working Group (SWG) meeting held on November 3, 1999:
  • On October 26, the FGDC Steering Committee endorsed the Content Standard for Geospatial Metadata, Part I: Biological Data Profile (document number FGDC-STD-001.1-1999) and the Content Standard for Remote Sensing Swath Data (document number FGDC-STD-009-1999).
  • The Governor's Council on Geographic Information for the State of Minnesota has just published the Positional Accuracy Handbook: Using the national Standard for Spatial Data Accuracy to measure and report geographic data quality in final form.
  • Meeting Minutes for the Standards Working Group meeting are available in more detail on the FGDC website.

• Kristen O'Grady reported on the Digital Earth Open Meeting held on Wednesday, November 10, in Reston, VA. The meeting addressed the current status, goals and challenges of the Digital Earth project. A large portion of the meeting was devoted to individual speakers, representing various federal agencies, private companies and academic institutions, reporting on their applicable projects and voicing their support for the Digital Earth Initiative.

• It is recommended by the FGDC Coordination Group that Subcommittees report their accomplishments of what is stated in their charter or previous year's work plan by December 31. Kristen O'Grady distributed a document summarizing the 1999 SCDD meeting agendas and asked subcommittee members to make suggestions for improvement and begin thinking of ideas for next year.

• Christopher Ray reported on the URISA "Street Smart and Address Savvy" conference that he attended in October and the feedback he received from his "Address Data Content Standard" presentation. Several changes to the Standard were proposed and are as follows:
  • Add Puerto Rican address structure to the Crosswalk (revise the decision tree, Include the postal address structure to Annex D, and add the USPS data elements to the crosswalk)
  • Add "fractional Street Number" to the descriptive elements to Annex C
  • Add the example descriptive elements for geographic and physical addresses
  • Delete "without any doubt" from the definition of the Mailing address type
  A more detailed Explanation of Proposed Changes is available (.pdf file). To send comments and for additional information contact Christopher Ray (301) 457-1056, cray@geo.census.gov.

• Fred Broome gave a lecture entitled, "Benchmark Testing of GIS Capabilities for Epidemiologic Studies of Breast Cancer on Long Island, New York," as part of the Centers for Disease Control’s Cartography and GIS Guest Lecture Series. This presentation addressed, among other things, how one selects a GIS to support epidemiologic research and the components that go into the selection process.

• Thanks to Chuck Croner for hosting the SCDD meeting once again.

The next meeting of the SCDD is tentatively scheduled for late January, early February of the year 2000. The meeting location and time have yet to be determined.
 

RETURN to SCDD Home Page

RETURN to FGDC Home Page

Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Last revised: Friday, 08-Dec-2000 14:11:47 EST

Skip this navigation

Census Bureau Links:   Home · Search · Subjects A-Z · FAQs · Data Tools · Catalog · Census 2010 · Quality · Privacy Policy · Contact Us

Page Last Modified: December 08, 2000