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Catalog Training

Introduction

The Catalog Support Team (CST) at Mid-Continent Mapping Center (MCMC) will provide training to USGS and business partner personnel. Mid-Continent Mapping Center offers this material and training in the spirit of scientific collaboration. Other offices are free to make their own decisions about the value of accepting the offer.

Short Briefings

MCMC's CST does short briefings via web conferencing or teleconferencing on the purpose and structure of the catalog and the overall architecture of The National Map. The standard presentation is about 30 minutes long and usually generates enough discussion to fill an additional 30 minutes. Adding more material and extending the briefing is not difficult.

Materials and Support for Self-training

The National Map Catalog Home hosts USGS-specific documentation and pointers to relevant standards and other external documentation. The material on this site falls considerably short of being interactive online training. It often is helpful to use telecons or web conferencing to guide students through the documents.

2-Day Training Workshop

The USGS Catalog Support Team at Mid-Continent Mapping Center offers a 2-day workshop that provides an overview of the catalog data model and use of The National Map Viewer. The workshop also details the concepts of a catalog service and methods of registering Web Map Services with the USGS. The training workshop consists of 1 half-day manager overview, followed by 1½ days of technical hands-on training.

MCMC is willing to host this class or send instructors to another site. If held elsewhere, MCMC will pay the instructors' travel. In all cases, students pay their own travel, and the hosting site is responsible for facility setup and computer system administration.

Class time consumes about 6 hours per day for 2 days. Upper management at the training site should support the training and ensure trainees are available to attend all sessions. Students need not be programmers or database experts, but must be willing and able to study relatively advanced concepts in data modeling, XML, and Internet information services.

• A training or conference room with computer workstations, no more than two students per workstation. Students may use their own laptops if the system administration at the training site permits.
• The Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) must be installed on each computer. The computers must be able to access the Internet and run Java™ Webstart applications hosted at MCMC. Connections to Oracle™ databases owned by the Geography Discipline are desired, if possible. ArcMap™ is desirable, but not absolutely required. The class will need access to a few Gb of shared network disk space.
• The hosting site is responsible for adequate system administration support.
• The hosting site must photocopy training materials for all students. (Several dozen pages per student.)

Catalog Support Team Start-up Training

Extended training is provided for sites that want to establish their own CSTs. Training commences with the 2-day workshop, and then continues with remote instruction via telecons and web conferencing. Students should have a basic understanding of SQL scripting, XML, and XSLT. Students will become familiar with a variety of tools for querying and updating databases, and techniques and tools for monitoring Web Map Services. The goal of this training is to create production units that can register new data in the catalog, maintain the records created, and do all associated quality control and monitoring. Students gradually will assume responsibility for monitoring systems, and for creating and maintaining data in the catalog database.

Application Programmer Training

One of the major points of the catalog project is to permit dynamic database driven applications. Relatively advanced programming skills are required. Application programmer training would target people with ready programming skills who desire to write applications for The National Map. Formal application programmer training has not been organized, but MCMC staff is willing to discuss training possibilities.

For those who already have experience with applications that use Web services, see The National Map Catalog Service: A Guide for Application Developers.

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