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Research paper : International cooperation for the utilization of earth observational data in an integrated manner (K. Iwao)−164−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.5 No.3 (2012) Association, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais of Brazil, Government of South Africa, China Meteorological Administration, Korea Meteorological Administration, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The Secretariat was composed of the personnel dispatched by the governments, as well as a few directly employed personnel including the chief secretary.4.4 Common infrastructure (CI)To realize the “system of systems” for global earth observation, the most important issue for the GEO was to construct the common infrastructure (CI) that enables the use of various observation data and services that are provided by the earth observation institutes around the world. In building the CI, the assumption was the dispersion management of earth observation data and services by the individual organizations as it has been done in the past. The information pertaining to the data and services provided by the organizations are registered to the CI, and one could access the data and services of the various organizations through the CI. The basic principle of GEOSS that does not require the integration of observation systems or information systems operated by individual organizations was enforced.[10]The CI was configured by three basic components along the scenario explained in chapter 3. The three components are web portal, clearinghouse, and service registry. By combining the components, the whole CI was realized as shown in Fig. 3.4.5 Problems in building the CIIdeally, the user should be able to use the same information and service no matter which combinations of WP and CL are used. However, in reality, there were many cases where the search result and the usable services differed according to the combination of the existing WP and CL, and there were some confusion among the users.In response to such a situation, in the Plenary of GEO held in 2009, it was resolved that the cause of confusion must be clarified, and the organizations described in chapter 2 providing the existing WP and CL offered would be evaluated, and to recommend the WP and CL for the common infrastructure.[11] The period allotted for the selection task was short, and it was to be done by the ministerial-level meeting of GEO in 2010.In this paper, the cause of user confusion, the evaluation method employed to build the CI, and the results will be described. Also, the relationship between the building of the CI and de jure standard established for the earth observation field will be explained.By building the CI, it is expected that the integrated management of earth observation data will become easy, the comprehensive search will become possible, and the user confusion will be resolved. Moreover, the experience of establishing the de jure standard will provide a model case for Japan in establishing the international standard in the future.5 Requirements and synthesis method5.1 Requirements for evaluation and selection of the components of CIIn evaluating and selecting the components of CI, the following requirements were considered. First was to guarantee the fairness of the evaluation result. To conduct the evaluation and selection of the organizations that developed and operated the WP and CL on a voluntary basis, it was necessary to obtain an international agreement for fair and equal evaluations and results. Second was time limit. The evaluation report had to be submitted to the member countries and organizations before the GEO ministerial-level meeting. Therefore, the cause of confusion and the evaluation of components had to be investigated in a period less than one year. Third was the establishment of the standard used for evaluations. In the traditional system evaluation, technological evaluation standard such as response time required for displaying the search result would be set. The technological evaluation standards were set for this evaluation also.On the other hand, the users of the nine societal benefit areas would be actually using the CI. The purpose is diverse, and the combination of technological evaluation does not necessarily enhance the usability for the users. It was expected that the usability of CI would differ between the users of countries with well-established Internet and the users of developing countries where the speed of the Internet connection was limited. In ordinary Internet search, only the search result of the text would be obtained, but in the CI, satellite images and maps would be handled. Particularly in a case where some special function was added to the image display, the smoothness until the search result was displayed would differ by WPs. Also, in WPs that required installation of special plug-ins, different usability and smoothness were expected depending on the performance spec of the PC used. Therefore, it was necessary to set up the evaluation standard for the usability of the users of nine societal benefit areas, including the users of developing countries with limited work environment such as Internet availability. Moreover, the CI has to run stably during the active period of the GEO, or at least up to 2015. Since the CI will not function even if one function such as the WP or CL becomes short, it was necessary to establish an evaluation standard that guaranteed a stable long-term operation.5.2 Synthetic method to build the CITo build the CI, a CI evaluation committee was set,

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