BPS – GGOS Bureau of
Products and Standards
Tasks
The tasks of the Bureau of Products and Standards are to:
- act as contact and coordinating point for homogenization of IAG standards and products;
- keep track of adopted geodetic standards and conventions across all IAG components, and initiate steps to close gaps and deficiencies;
- interact with external stakeholders in the field of standards and conventions (e.g., IAU, ISO, BIPM, CODATA, UN-GGIM, …);
- act as IAG representative to ISO/TC 211 and to the UN-GGIM GGRF Working Group “Data Sharing and Development of Geodetic Standards”;
- contribute to the UN GGIM Subcommittee on Geodesy (SCoG), mainly to the Working Group “Data Sharing and Development of Geodetic Standards”;
- regularly update the inventory on standards and conventions used for the generation of IAG products to incorporate the latest developments in these fields;
- contribute to the re-writing/revising of the IERS Conventions, mainly in the function as Chapter Expert for Chapter 1 “General definitions and numerical standards“;
- focus on the integration of geometric and gravimetric observations, and to support the development of integrated products (e.g., GGRF, IHRF, atmosphere products);
- contribute to the Committee on the Definition of Essential Geodetic Variables (EGV), such EGVs could then serve as a basis for a gap analysis to identify requirements concerning observational properties and networks, accuracy, spatial and temporal resolution and latency;
- contribute to the newly established Working Group “Towards a consistent set of parameters for the definition of a new GRS”;
- contribute to the GGOS DOI Working Group, focusing on Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for geodetic data and products to improve discoverability of data sets and to ensure that data providers receive proper credit for their published data;
- organizational and coordination issues as well as representation and outreach activities, including internal BPS meetings (every two months), external Bureau meetings (twice per year), representing the BPS within IAG and at conferences and workshops, presentation and publication of BPS activities.