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New York State Office of Cyber Security

Geographic Information Systems Clearinghouse

GIS Standards Approval Procedure

A GIS Standard can be proposed by any member of the New York State GIS Coordinating Body (hereinafter Coordinating Body) or its advisory groups, work groups, or subcommittees, and any member of the New York State GIS Data Sharing Cooperative, as well as state or local government agencies. Proposals will also be considered from non-government groups such as professional societies, private companies, consortia, and educational institutions. Every effort should be made to adopt existing standards rather than developing new standards. Proposals must be submitted as detailed in the Procedure for Submitting a GIS Standard document.

  1. Upon receipt of a new proposal, the Coordinating Body Chair will forward the proposal to the Standards and Data Coordination Work Group (hereinafter Work Group). The Work Group's acting Standards subcommittee leader will perform an initial evaluation, consulting subject area experts as needed. The Coordinating Body Chair will send an acknowledgment letter to the initial proposer.
    • If accepted for consideration, the proposal will be assigned to specific members of the Work Group who will be responsible for compiling a working draft proposal, conferring with the initial proposer as necessary, as well as coordinating and tracking the proposal through the approval procedures. At this point, a notice of the proposal review will be posted on the Clearinghouse (Standards under Review section).
    • Otherwise, a letter containing the proposal and an explanation of the recommended disposition will be reviewed with the Work Group before being sent to the initial proposer and the Coordinating Body Chair.
  2. The working draft standard will be compiled by the Work Group subcommittee and presented to the full Work Group for review and evaluation. The standard will follow the following format:
    • The GIS standard will have a title page that will include the title of the standard, the responsible Subcommittee or Working Group, and the contact persons, with postal and e-mail addresses.
    • The standard will have a table of contents. All pages will be numbered.
    • The standard will contain an introduction that will describe the mission and goals of standard.
    • The body of the standard will follow the introduction and will describe the following:
      • relationship to existing standards
      • description of standard
      • applicability and intended uses of standard (provide an example where possible)
      • impacts of standard (describe funding or other items of concern)
      • standard development procedures
      • participants
      • comments and reviews
      • maintenance of the standard
    • References will be listed in a separate section.
    • Appendices will be created containing comments and recommendations made at each stage.
  3. Comments and recommendations from the Work Group will be addressed, and a formal public draft of the standard created and presented to the Coordinating Body Chair. The Chair will distribute the public draft to the advisory and work group chairs, the initial proposer, and all identified stakeholders, requesting feedback. The public draft will also be posted on the Clearinghouse. The advisory and work group chairs will have 30 days to gather comments from their respective groups and forward them back to the Work Group. The advisory and work group chairs shall also forward the public draft to any known stakeholders particular to the standard that their group identifies. Concurrent with this advisory and work group review and comment period, there will be a 60-day period for any other stakeholders to review and forward comments to the Work Group.
  4. The Work Group subcommittee will evaluate comments and recommendations, create a final draft of the standard, and review it with the Work Group before forwarding it to the Coordinating Body Chair.
  5. The Coordinating Body will review, and approve or disapprove the final draft standard.
    • If approved by the Coordinating Body, the Coordinating Body Chair will forward the approved standard to the Director of the Office for Technology (OFT) and to the OFT Standards Group for review and approval. If approved by both parties, the standard will be posted on the GIS Clearinghouse and the Coordinating Body Chair will send a notice to all Cooperative members, the Coordinating Body, the advisory and work group chairs, the initial proposer, and those parties who provided comments during the review process.
    • Otherwise, the Coordinating Body Chair will send a notice with an explanation of the recommended disposition to the Coordinating Body, the advisory and work group chairs, and the initial proposer. The notice will include the final draft standard and will also be posted on the Clearinghouse.

This standards approval procedure is also summarized in a flow chart.