Phase 3 – Implementation Goals

The National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Hydrologic Development (OHD) is sponsoring this third phase of HydroXC's work. In response to the feedback we heard from Consortium members during the second phase, the third phase of this project will address pragmatic requirements for using the XML schema, and for making it more specific to daily needs of hydrologic software users. There are three main areas of work planned for phase three of HydroXC: research, development and community building.

The research component of this phase is intended to further evolve the HydroXC XML schema. To do so, we will create a couple of object-specific sub-schemas, including a few examples that highlight the new areas of the schema. The Schema Version 3.0 will be shared with the HydroXC community during the first quarter of 2007.

The development component of this phase involves creating a data adapter that is capable of reading and writing messages between some proprietary format and HydroXC-compliant XML. To enable hydrologic organizations to begin using the schema for their own modeling and data delivery, it is essential to begin developing these basic tools and examples. After implementing this data adapter, we intend to work with a Consortium member to implement the adapter into an existing application. This data adapter work is scheduled for the second quarter of 2007.

Finally, the community building component of this phase is intended to strengthen the collaboration among the HydroXC members. As in earlier phases, we will schedule a couple of web meetings at meaningful milestones throughout the phase. Additionally, and without jeopardizing the Consortium's successes to date, we intend to join the Consortium's work more closely with that of similar organizations. We will begin these efforts by working to identify areas of potential collaboration and integration. Finally, we will design and implement a simple, stand-alone website for HydroXC. The new site should go live by the end of the first quarter of 2007.