ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND THE NII

                                       

                           Summary of Comments



                   Committee On Applications and Technology 

                     Information Infrastructure Task Force

                            September 8, 1994



                           Ernest Daddio



                   National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

                           Department of Commerce



Following is a summary of comments received on the "Environmental

Monitoring and the NII" white paper which appeared as one of seven NII

applications papers in the publication "Putting the Information

Infrastructure to Work." The comments are the result of a direct

mailing to more than 800 individuals as well as posting on electronic

bulletin boards. The survey targeted individuals with interest and/or

expertise in environmental matters and information technology and

spanned the gamut of private industry, academia, professional

associations, interest groups, and federal, state, and local

governments.







In general, the comments received reinforced issues and considerations

identified in the Environmental Monitoring white paper. A number of

reviewers expanded upon the issues and helped to clarify and better

define some of these issues. For the purpose of summarizing the

comments, they are grouped below into four general categories:

interoperability and standards, universal access to information and

network services, intellectual property rights/data pricing, and

Government versus non-Government role.











Interoperability and Standards





Most reviewers of the Environmental Monitoring white paper touched upon

issues of interoperability of information systems. One reviewer

stated:





"...the most important part of the entire document is... coordination

among the various Federal agencies. In my experience, and in the

experience of many other scientists...the recent history of

un-coordination among the agencies has been not only time-comsuming,

frustrating and inefficient from our perspective, but it has also been

a clear waste of money in terms of duplicated efforts, failed projects,

and simple turf-protecting...when a specific environmental data set,

managed by a specific agency, is available only via asingle data

system, and (as has happened) that particular agency refuses to adopt a

better system, access to that data set is effectively squelched. The

current situation, with environmental data sets...provides a variety of

examples of this problem."







A technical manager at an internationally based corporation with

environmental science and technology interests noted:





"...the central theme of the paper should be that the NII is more the

incentive than the means for the agencies to do better with their data

and information.  Interoperability is the key concept, with vitual

access to the data as needed.  Therefore, the big push from the agency

side should be standardization of data, data system access, and quality

assurance."











Universal Access to Information and Network Services







Issues of access and particularly access to appropriate levels of

bandwidth were expressed by several individuals. Certainly a goal of

the NII should be a democratization of access; inevitably one is

confronted with questions of how to best distribute a limited resource.

A University of Colorado scientist stated:





"Much has been written about commercial cable companies and/or

telephone companies providing coaxial-level Internet service to every

household in the country. Such speculation may be useful from a

political perspective...It scares the daylights out of those of us who

depend on the Internet for our ability to do environmental science. We

have enough problems with bandwidth as it is...future use of the system

by institutions working on critical national environmental problems may

be hampered by the public's using the system for games, gossip, and

catalog orders. A priority system may be necessary."





Another reviewer made a point that environmental databases may be

enormous in volume and therefore how does one determine who gets access

to the databases and how much of the databases should be allowed to be

transported over the telecommunications infrastructure. His comments

follow:





"...care should be taken to avoid 'information overload' on this

system. To this end, there should be a concerted effort to 'filter'

and/or 'prioritize' environmental information on the NII."





A corporate executive for an environmental information technology firm

raised the issue of what level of user understanding should be targeted

considering theenvironmental monitoring application is a highly

technical one:





"On the NII we will find extreme levels of sophistication of users.

Certainly something like MOSAIC can address the 'friendliness' issue,

but as the variety and complexity of the data grow, the user interface

must adapt accordingly. We believe this is non-trivial."











Intellectual Property Rights/Data Pricing







Several respondents to the request for public comments on the

"Environmental Monitoring and the NII" paper raised issues related to

intellectual property rights to information, charging for data, and how

much to charge. As one may anticipate, the opinions fell on either side

of the fence depending on whether one is the consumer or the provider

of environmental information.





An individual in a private weather consulting firm complained that he

and others like him will not be able to compete with the federal

agencies distributing similar products for free; nor could he compete

with universities whose weather products distribution is, in effect,

subsidized through research grants from the federal and state

governments and private foundations. On the other hand, a university

researcher pointed to reduction in remote sensing research in the 1980s

that resulted from the privatization of LANDSAT satellite imagery and

the consequential increase in cost to the user. Another university

researcher posed the issue:



"We need to debate data worth and ownership. In the past, the data and

information was the property of those collecting it. They then turned

the data and information into valuable rewards (publication, salary,

tenure, etc.)...How about the scientist who is not the primary data

gatherer but is the synthesizer? ...Whose credit?"











Government Versus Non-Government Role







Several reviewers of the Environmental Monitoring white paper

emphasized the importance of the partnership between the Government and

non-Government sectors in implementing NII plans and in implementing

the environmental monitoring application. One reviewer affiliated with

an internationally based information technology corporation observed:







"more emphasis needs to be placed on the interface with the private

sector groups and their application of environmental data...although it

is true that federal agencies hold most of the environmental data in

repositories, the majority of the data needs (and the decisions made)

are at the state and local levels."







Still another reviewer from a Department of Energy laboratory stated:







"the value of the NII in the context of servicing decision support

systems for the Federal Government, Industry, Public Interest Groups,

and Academe is profound and should receive more emphasis in the

paper..."







A corporate executive in environmental information research and

technology pointed out that the environmental monitoring as an

application on the NII is significantly constrained in the context of

today's federal agency budgets. It is not clear that the private sector

has enough profit motive to invest heavily in the application. Her

assessment follows:







"Budgetary constraints are a significant reality...while the

technology/capability and motivation are present, the federal

government continues to face a deficit, and funding priorities are the

norm...recommend that the private sector be encouraged to invest and

develop this aspect of the NII, however, it is not clear that the

business case can be effectively made at this juncture."







In a more general context, beyond the environmental monitoring

application, several comments stressed the importance of the

partnership between government and the private sector in realizing the

NII vision. Each has a critical role to play and each depends on the

other. For example, a technologist at a large international information

technology corporation commented:



"Commercialization of technologies will follow the identification of

the sustainable marketplace but often lags the leading edge

requirement. Some of the necessary technologies will progress without

Government guidance. Slow progress in other technologies may inhibit

realization of the NII vision...Where there is significant risk in

bringing technology to market, a proactive Government role could make

the difference. The U.S. Government should define the highly leveraged

technologies to accomplish its vision, look for areas of significant

risk to business and areas where a sustainable marketplace will lag the

Government's need, and step in."

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