National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

This document reports on a specialist meeting held under the auspices of the project, in Santa Barbara, California in December 1997, to assess the state of research in GIS interoperability, define research needs, and develop a research agenda.

The workshop was held immediately after Interop ‘97, an international conference on interoperating GISs—this juxtaposition of a conference and a workshop on the same topic allowed many of the ideas to be presented and discussed before the workshop began, and led to greater focus.The report begins with a general discussion of the nature of interoperability, and the consequences of progress toward its goals. This is followed by sections that review the meeting’s efforts to define the conceptual framework of interoperability, and appropriate theory; identify efforts that could help build the organizational infrastructure for research; outline research needs; and identify specific research topics. The report also includes a selection of position papers provided by the meeting participants in an appendix.