Technological advancements in digital methodology to support geoscience data acquisition and management, cartography, and publications have transformed the Canadian geoscience community. With this transformation, all of Canada's provincial, territorial and federal geological surveys began to investigate more efficient methods of sharing their knowledge assets. The development of a Canadian Geoscience Knowledge Network (CGKN), would link all of the government geological surveys and could potentially include knowledge held within academic institutions and the private sector.

To explore the concept of CGKN, the National Geological Surveys Committee (NGSC) sponsored the first workshop in 1998 with representation from all of Canada's government geological surveys. The workshop resulted in a strong consensus that the development of the proposed CGKN was essential to maintain Canada's position as a world leader in provision of geoscience information for sustainable resource development and environmental stewardship. It was agreed upon, that each geological survey would maintain its information holdings locally and determine its priorities for including its information into CGKN as well as their own rate of participation and funding. CGKN would provide recommendations for standards, data models and methodologies for incorporation of important data layers. As well, the NGSC would manage CGKN with the creation of a management structure to refine the details and requirements for its formation.

In June of 2000, a second workshop was held by the NGSC for the development of CGKN. Several recommendations resulted from this workshop. The first, to have the data model be built in discipline-specific components as dictated by the diversity of geoscience data types. Second, the overall development of the common data model be coordinated by a team dedicated to this task. Third, the first priority for CGKN, was the development of a comprehensive catalog of Canadian government geoscience data and publications with an Internet search engine to allow their discovery. Finally, it was decided that CGKN be managed by a program office of two full-time staff with expertise in geoscience information management. This team would develop a business plan, a communications plan including a Web site, publish the progress of the working groups and seek out funding for CGKN. With initial funding from the Targeted Geoscience Initiative, everything was in place to begin development right away.

By October 2000, a Steering Committee was formed with representatives from each survey agency to set the vision and priorities for CGKN. A secretariat was in place to fulfill the role of management of CGKN. A working group was formed to create the data catalog and an initial data model had been created.

Early in 2001, GeoConnections became involved in the development of CGKN by providing additional funding. A second working group was formed for data integration to provide solutions for technical issues with the scientific data. Six discipline-specific subgroups were formed to develop the standards, and tools required by their discipline for CGKN. During the course of 2001, several of these subgroups began to develop their own small projects to enhance CGKN with more tools for the discovery of geoscience information. The completion of many data collections for the data catalogue and the success of the search engine for discovery of metadata were also achieved by the end of the year.

Although all the working groups have been faced with diverse obstacles, the importance and impact of their work and the CGKN initiative were well received at the PDAC conference in March 2002. Further cooperation of the federal, provincial, and territorial geoscience agencies will ensure Canada's prominence in the global marketplace and continue development of the CGKN.