GGOS
Coordinating Office2020-2022 Implementation Plan

ggos.orgGGOS Coordinating Office
Implementation Plan 2020-2022
Contents
1

IMPLEMENTATION OVERVIEW .............................................................................................................. 2
1.1

Introduction................................................................................................................................... 2

1.2

Goals and Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 2

1.3
Coordinating Office Authority, Governance Structure, Management Structure, andImplementation Approach ........................................................................................................................ 3
1.3.1 Coordinating Office Authority ...................................................................................................... 3
1.3.2 Governance Structure .................................................................................................................. 3
1.3.3 Management Structure ................................................................................................................ 4
1.3.4 Implementation Approach ........................................................................................................... 5
1.4
2.0

Stakeholder Definition .................................................................................................................. 6
Coordinating Board BASELINES ......................................................................................................... 8

2.1

Requirements Baseline.................................................................................................................. 8

2.2

Schedule Baseline .......................................................................................................................... 8

2.2.1 Coordination of GGOS Activities .................................................................................................. 9
2.2.2 Information-technology Activities................................................................................................ 9
2.2.3 Outreach Activities ....................................................................................................................... 9
2.3

Resources .................................................................................................................................... 10

3.0

CHANGE LOG ................................................................................................................................... 10

4.0

APPENDICES..................................................................................................................................... 10

Appendix A

Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. 10

Appendix B

Glossary ........................................................................................................................... 11

Appendix C

References ....................................................................................................................... 11

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1

IMPLEMENTATION OVERVIEW

1.1

Introduction

As defined in the GGOS Terms of Reference (approved in July 2011), “The GGOS Coordinating Office (CO)performs the day-to-day activities in support of GGOS, the Executive Committee, the Coordinating Boardand the Science Panel, and ensures coordination of the activities of the various components. The CO
ensures information flow, maintains documentation of the GGOS activities and manages specificassistance functions that enhance the coordination across all areas of GGOS, including inter-services
coordination and support for workshops. The CO in its long-term coordination role ensures that the
GGOS components contribute to GGOS in a consistent and continuous manner and adhere to GGOS
standards. The CO also maintains, manages and coordinates the GGOS Web presence.”

1.2

Goals and Objectives

The GGOS Coordinating Office ensures optimal coordination of the activities of the various GGOS
components. As such, the coordinating office endeavors to support all GGOS entities to achieve all of
their respective goals and supporting objectives to make their prescribed outcomes a reality.
Nevertheless, as shown in Table 1.2-1, the Coordinating Office will directly handle a set of primary andsecondary goals in its own right.

Table 1.2-1: GGOS Coordinating Office Goals and Objectives Mapping (primary (✓✓) and secondary (✓) goals).

Primary Goals — The Coordinating Board looks to Goal 4 (Communications, Education and Outreach)and associated objectives 4.1 (Establish a strong internet/online presence) and 4.2 (Outreach to thetechnical community and general society) for primary direction in its efforts. The Coordinating Officewill undertake achieving the desired outcomes associated with those primary objectives, namely (asstated in the Strategic Plan):
Outcome 4-1: The GGOS web presence is a consolidated and extensive resource – it is the primary pointof engagement for the technical community, and a valuable tool for outreach to society. The GGOS
website and portal are amalgamated into a single website and streamlined for both technical andgeneral audiences. The website provides online databases of GGOS resources, including technicalresources, reports issued by (and related to) GGOS, general efforts advancing the organization, student
opportunities and other educational resources.

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Outcome 4-2A: GGOS engages the expert population within GGOS membership; engages in outreach torelated and potentially complementary groups; supports geodetic satellite missions; advocates for new
stations; and engages the general technical community through sessions at workshops and conferences.
Outcome 4-2B: A component of the GGOS website is created for outreach to education and generalinterest audiences; educational materials are published for distribution to students of various age as wellas the general public.
Secondary Goals — The Coordinating Office sets as its secondary objectives the rest of the GGOS
objectives consistently with its charter to coordinate all activities of GGOS.

1.3 Coordinating Office Authority, Governance Structure, Management Structure,and Implementation Approach
1.3.1 Coordinating Office Authority
The Coordinating Office acts at the pleasure of the Coordinating Board, which delegates authority to the
Coordinating Office to run the day-to-day activities associated with the coordination of theimplementation of the different plans set forth by the GGOS bureaus and Science Panel. In this capacity,
the Coordinating Office works closely with the directors of the bureaus and science panel to manage
activities and ensure that plans are accomplished in a timely and efficient manner.

1.3.2 Governance Structure
The fundamental governing structure of GGOS, including its Coordinating Office, is dictated by the GGOS
Terms of Reference (GGOS 2011). The Terms of Reference establish the position of a Director (Head) of
the Coordinating Office, who is a voting ex-officio member of the Coordinating Board.
After the adoption of the strategic plan, the Coordinating Board oversees the generation of an
implementation plan every two years to achieve the objectives set forth in the strategic plan. This
implementation plan is made up of individual implementation plans associated with the following GGOS
components: CB, BNO, BPS, CO, Science Panel. The Coordinating Board delegates responsibility for thegeneration of those plans — except the one belonging to the Coordinating Board — to the different
entities.
The Coordination Board approves the implementation plans and delegates responsibility for the day-today monitoring and coordination of all plan activities to the director of the Coordinating Office.

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1.3.3 Management Structure
The resources (positions) of the GGOS Coordinating Office are summarized in Table 1.3-1.

Position

Resource

Entity Contributing

Director of Coordinating Office

Martin Sehnal (< 0.7 FTE)

BEV (Austria)

GGOS Web and Social Media Manager

Martin Sehnal (< 0.2 FTE)

BEV (Austria)

CO Management & Engineering Support

various people (< 0.1 FTE)

BEV (Austria)

Manager of External Relation

Allison Craddock (< 0.3 FTE)

NASA (USA)

Chair of DOI Working Group

Kirsten Elger (< 0.2 FTE)GFZ (Germany)

Table 1.3-1: Coordinating Office Resources.

The Director of the GGOS Coordinating Office is an ex-officio voting member of the Coordinating Boardand coordinates and oversees the Day-to-day activities of GGOS. He then reports progress against
execution plans and associated schedules to the Coordinating Board on a periodic basis. The
Coordinating Board then ensures that these activities continue to be aligned with the objectives of thestrategic plan and redirects the Coordinating Office as needed. A summary of all communications tomanage all activities associated with the Coordinating Office is shown in Table 1.3-2. This table includes
all information-gathering meetings and reporting meetings.
The GGOS Web and Social Media Manager is responsible for the web and social media presence. This
position and the Management & Engineering Support Team assist the Director of GGOS CO.
All artifacts generated by GGOS, including strategic and implementation plans, as well as meeting
minutes and presentations, are curated by the Coordinating Office and made accessible online via the
GGOS Website/Portal.
The Manager of External Relations is a member of the Coordinating Office and an ex-officio voting
member of the Coordinating Board. This position supports the Director of GGOS CO in outreach activities
by maintain the communication to external partner organization.
The Chair of the DOI Working Group is the head of the “WG on DOIs for Geodetic Data Sets”, which wasestablished in 2019 within the Coordinating Office for a period of 4 years.

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Communication
Type

PurposeMediumFrequency

Audience

Owner

Deliverables

CB Chair & CO
Director Meeting

Discussion of
day-to-day
activities / issues
Discussion of
day-to-day
business

E-Mail(or by Telecon)

Occasionally

CB Chair,
CO Director

CB
Chair

Outcome reportin EC Telecon

TeleconMonthly

GGOS EC,
invited Guests

CB
Chair

Before: Agenda
After: Minutes

Review status,
strategic issues

Face-to-Face(and by Telecon)

Twice per year
(EGU, AGU)

GGOS CB,invited Guests

CB
Chair

GGOS EC Telecon

GGOS CB Meeting

progress reports
Before: Agenda
After: Minutes
GGOS Consortium Interactions
Face-to-Face
Annually
GGOS CB,CB
GGOS entities
Meeting
GGOS/IAG(and by Telecon)
Consortium,
Chair
reports(GGOS Days)
Guests
Before: Agenda
After: Minutes
DOI WG Telecon
Discussion of WG Telecon
Monthly
WG Chair &WG
progress report
process
members
Chair
Before: Agenda
After: Minutes
Table 1.3-2: Coordinating Office Communications Plan. The table identifies the communication requirements of theCoordinating Office.

1.3.4 Implementation Approach
The GGOS Coordinating Office relies on the partner institutions that provide the personnel who comprise
the Coordinating Office (See Table 1.3-1: Coordinating Office Resources) for the execution of its
functions.
The GGOS Coordinating Office also relies on the other GGOS entities, including: the GGOS Coordinating
Board that provides overall direction to the Coordinating Office; the bureaus, their working groups, andthe Science Panel for the execution of implementation plans.
The GGOS Coordinating Office will work very closely with the GGOS Coordinating Board and steeringcommittees, such as the Science Panel and Consortium, to oversee the fulfillment of GGOS goals andobjectives as set forth in its strategic plan.

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1.4

Stakeholder Definition

Table 1.4-1 summarizes the advocacy strategy for the identified internal and external stakeholders of
GGOS.

STAKEHOLDERS

ADVOCACY STRATEGIESINTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
GGOS Coordinating Board

The GGOS Coordinating Board is the primary oversight entity, as well
as beneficiary, of Coordinating Office efforts. The two entities supportand sustain one another, for the overall benefit of GGOS and the IAG.
Advocacy strategies includes communication to discuss progress andissues, as well as face-to-face (or teleconference) meetings at major
conferences and/or workshops (approximately two to three times peryear).

GGOS Bureaus

GGOS Bureau directors work closely with the Coordinating Office toupdate relevant GGOS elements on bureau activities and ensure thattasks are accomplished in an efficient and timely manner.
Advocacy strategies include approximately monthly meetings to
discuss progress and issues.

GGOS Science Panel

The director of the GGOS Science Panel works closely with the
Coordinating Office to provide progress updates, manage assigned
activities, and ensure that plans relevant to the panel areaccomplished in a timely and efficient manner.
Advocacy strategies include frequent (monthly) meetings to discuss
progress and issues.

EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERSCEOSAs an associate member organization of CEOS, GGOS participates in
the Plenary, Strategic Implementation Team, and relevant working
groups. CEOS depends on its associated agencies to ensure that key
activities have sufficient human resources and seamless leadership at
all levels.
GGOS supports the CEOS mission of “ensur[ing] international
coordination of civil space-based Earth observation programs, andpromot[ing] exchange of data to optimize social benefit and inform
decision making for securing a prosperous and sustainable future forhumankind” with a critical connection between CEOS and various
space agencies, ensuring optimal cooperation between the twoggos.org

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stakeholders for the purposes of geodetic observation.
Advocacy strategies include web presence and social media
coordination and promotion of each other’s activities.
GEO

GGOS supports the GEO vision of realizing “a future wherein decisions
and actions, for the benefit of humankind, are informed bycoordinated, comprehensive and sustained Earth observations andinformation” by providing observations relevant for several of theSocietal Benefit Areas addressed by GEO, including disasters, water,
climate, and weather. GGOS, through the activities of its Coordinating
Board, also acts as the interface between the geodetic services and
GEO.
Advocacy strategies include web presence and social media
coordination and promotion of each other’s activities.

Space Agencies

As the primary source of all global geodetic information and expertise,
GGOS provides a critical service to space agencies all over the world.
Advocacy strategies will include coordination and promotion of eachother’s activities through GGOS Coordinating Office members
employed by (or working with) space agencies, as well as joint web andsocial media presence.

United Nations

The Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information
Management (UN-GGIM) is a high-level board on United Nations level.
Advocacy strategies will include regular (semi-annual) participation of
CO members in UN-GGIM meetings, as well as joint web-based
promotion of each other’s activities.

Table 1.4-1: Coordinating Board Stakeholders and Advocacy Strategies

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2.0 Coordinating Board BASELINES
The foundation of the GGOS Coordinating Office is to serve as a central point of coordination for GGOS
efforts, and thus streamline the efforts of bureaus, working groups, the science panel, focus areas, andother entities in the most efficient and mutually beneficial way possible. It also ensures that coordination
outside of GGOS, including work in concert with IAG Services, occurs in the best and most agreeable way
possible.

2.1

Requirements Baseline

The requirements addressed in this baseline are those requirements of a technical nature that will
require a technical verification and validation. They represent “the high level activities that GGOS
together with the IAG must ensure” (GGOS 2020, p. 224). Other activities pursued in support of meeting
objectives and their overarching goals are presented as part of Section 2.2 (Schedule Baseline). Table
2.1-1 shows only those requirements that whose oversight has been allocated to the Coordinating
Office—the totality of functional and operational requirements can be found in the Coordinating Board
implementation plan. It also shows the allocation of those requirements to an IAG service or otherentity. (These requirements may be rewritten at a later stage to ensure they meet requirement
definition standards.)

REQUIREMENT REQUIREMENT AND INTERPRETATIONREFERENCE

GGOS
ALLOCATIONIAGSERVICE

OTHER

(OR

ENTITY)

ALLOCATION

Operational Specifications for GGOS
GGOS-Ops-7-

Maintain databases of observations and GGOS CO
products.
Establish guidelines using DOIs for geodetic DOI WG
data sets.

All IAG Services

Table 2.1-1: Coordinating Board Requirement Allocation

2.2

Schedule Baseline

The scheduled activities of the Coordinating Office are shown in Figure 2.2-1. The activities are divided inthree main categories: Coordination of GGOS activities, information-technology activities, and outreachactivities.

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2.2.1 Coordination of GGOS Activities
The GGOS Coordinating Office main activity is the coordination of all GGOS efforts as outlined in this planand the implementation plans of the GGOS components. This coordination activity takes place duringformal meetings (see Table 1.3-2: Coordinating Office Communications Plan) and informal
communications via phone, email or in person.

2.2.2 Information-technology Activities
The planned activities in the field of information technology, which include developing a strong
web/online presence for external and internal use, are grouped as follows:
▪
▪
▪

▪
▪

Redesign and implement a new GGOS website with the aim to make it more user-friendly andattractive for geodesists, geoscientists, and non-scientists (e.g. politician).
Establishing of a secure cloud hosting system “GGOS Cloud” as an online digital library to provide
internal and external/public documents and data.
Develop a “GGOS Portal” to provide information’s and [meta] data about IAG products. It should be
integrated and connected with the GGOS website. This effort includes addressing requirement
GGOS-Ops-7 regarding the maintenance and access to databases of information and products (See
Section 2.1 Requirements Baseline).
Solicit specialized web content from GGOS components.
Manage and extend the social media visibility to meet our plans for engagement with internal andexternal stakeholders (See Section 1.4). This includes maintenance of e.g. Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, and other social media platforms.

2.2.3 Outreach Activities▪
▪
▪

Establish and coordinate a newsletter service with popular articles about geodetic- techniques,
observation methods, and products to make geodesy more attractive for non-geodesists.
Redesign and develop a new GGOS brochure, as well as one-page fact sheets and other pertinent
media.
Manage external relations and engagement with stakeholder organizations such as GEO, CEOS and
ISC-WDS as well as identify opportunities to link geodesy with relevant United Nations frameworks,
such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the UN-GGIM-World Bank Integrated
Geospatial Information Framework. (Manager of External Relations)Establish Guidelines on DOIs for
geodetic data sets in the Working Group on “Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for Geodetic Data Sets”.
It was established in 2019 and the final output should be presented at the IUGG General Assembly in
2023.

Figure 2.2-1: Schedule of the Coordinating Office activities.

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2.3

Resources

The human resources needed to operate the GGOS Coordinating Office are those captured in Table 1.31.
Material resources are provided by the institutions sponsoring the members of the board.
Travel is similarly covered by the institutions sponsoring the members of the board.
Other costs, such as meeting rooms and teleconferences are covered by the hosting institutions.

3.0 CHANGE LOG
VERSION

RELEASE DATESYNOPSIS OF RELEASE

1.0
2.0
3.0

[2015-10-20][2017-04-01][2021-01-22]

Implementation Plan 2015-2016
Implementation Plan 2017-2018
Implementation Plan 2020-2022

Table 3-1: Coordinating Office Implementation Plan Change Log

4.0 APPENDICES
Appendix A Abbreviations
BEV

Bundesamt für Eich- und Vermessungswesen - Austrian Federal Office of Metrology and
SurveyingBNO(GGOS) Bureau of Network and ObservationsBPS(GGOS) Bureau of Products and Standards

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CB(GGOS) Coordinating Board

CEOS

Committee on Earth Observation Satellites

CO(GGOS) Coordinating Office

DOI

Digital Object Identifier

FTE

Full-time Equivalent

GEO

Group on Earth Observations

GFZ

Deutsches Geo Forschungs Zentrum GFZ

GIAC

GGOS Interagency Committee

GIMS

GGOS Integrated Master Schedule

GGOS

Global Geodetic Observing System

IAG

International Association of Geodesy

ICS

International Science Council

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

UN-GGIM

United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management

WDS

World Data System

WG

Working GroupAppendix B Glossary
TERM

DEFINITION[Term goes here][Term goes here][Definition goes here][Definition goes here]

Table B-1: Terms and Definitions

Appendix C References[GGOS 2020]: Global Geodetic Observing System: Meeting the Requirements of a Global Society on a
Changing Planet in 2020", H.-P. Plag and M. Pearlman (editors), Springer, 2009
[GGOS ToR] Terms of Reference of the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS), IAG Executive
Committee, IUGG XXV General Assembly, Melbourne, Australia, July 2011.

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