"Information is a national asset"

The federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the CIO Council have released a set of IT Architecture Principles for the U.S. Government, according to a story in Federal Computer World.

The Architecture Principles (PDF) are intended to support "a single Federal Enterprise Architecture to achieve operational excellence for the American public."

The Introduction includes a basic statement of purpose:

Government coordination depends upon consistent decision making across multiple business units, departments and projects. But a natural tension exists whenever more than 100 agencies and thousands of sub-agencies and programs must work together as one. An enterprise-wide architecture tries to create a framework for effective decision making across multiple business units. Otherwise, independent groups decide alone resulting in inconsistency, information islands, isolated business processes, and inefficient technologies. This mixture is a recipe for poor performance.

Among the seven principles is one that sounds a theme familiar to NSGIC members: "Information is a national asset."

The rationale for this principle speaks of the importance of "a well-informed citizenry" and notes that "accurate information is critical to effective decision making, improved performance, and accurate reporting."

Among the implications of this principle are several that reflect lessons learned by NSGIC members about geospatial data coordination:

• Government must "identify authoritative sources of high quality information, and agencies to provide access to specified data and information."
• This may require some "restructuring" of data sources.
• The federal government will need a strategy "to promote cost effective data sharing with other levels of government."
  

Job Posting: Wisconsin GIO

The word is out, over on the Wisconsin Mapping Bulletin, that the Wisconsin Department of Administration is looking for a new Geographic Information Officer (GIO). Until recently, that post had been held by Dave Mockert (Dave's in the private sector now). The job announcement is posted on the DOA web site.

The Center Moves North and West

USGS's Craig Neidig has sent us a link to a story on NPR's Morning Edition yesterday about the designation of a new spot as the "official geographic center of the country."

The story tells about how Belle Fourche, in South Dakota, celebrated its designation as the center of the nation with the unveiling of a new monument at the "actual" center point.


View Larger Map

The center of the 48 continental states had been found to be in Kansas. When Alaska entered the Union, the center of the 49 states moved north to a spot northeast of Belle Fourche. Factoring-in Hawaii shifted the center west by about six miles. That's the spot that the good citizens of that part of Butte County are marking this summer.

Update (and Mea Culpa): A sharp-eyed (and clear-thinking) anonymous commenter spotted my error this morning. I had mistakenly placed Belle Fourche in North Dakota instead of South Dakota. Trying to edit a post with this fancy Google Maps embed-thingy locked up the Blogger editor, though. So I have had to recreate (correct) and re-post. Thus, the correcting comment is lost to the ages. My gratitude to my unknown editor remains.

A Workshop on Improving Geospatial Transportation Data

The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies has announced a workshop in December to "examine the potential benefits and costs for the transportation community from improvements to the national geospatial information infrastructure for transportation. "

According to the Workshop Invitation (PDF), there are five objectives of the one-day workshop:

1. Investigate the likely applications, benefits, and costs of an improved multimodal surface national transportation geospatial information system for the transportation community;
2. Identify likely users, beneficiaries, and funding sources;
3. Discuss key data elements for the various transportation modes that could be included;
4. Suggest potential roles, mechanisms for sharing data, and approaches to integrate required data from multiple sources; and
5. Explore institutional arrangements that could facilitate such an initiative.

Among the speakers identified in the preliminary agenda included in the workshop invitation is NSGIC President Stu Davis.

The workshop is set for December 14, at the The National Academies Keck Center, in Washington, D.C. The workshop is not free. Costs and hotel information are also detailed in the workshop invitation.

What's Going on at the URISA Conference?

Adena Schutzberg, of All Points Blog, is providing running commentary and updates from the 2007 URISA Annual Conference of , in Washington DC.

Today, for example, she offers an idea of the themes she sees developing at this event:

1. "...a need to grab onto and hold tight the idea of a geospatial discipline."
2. "...URISA is redefining itself around policy and more management/leadership education."
3. "The topics of the conference are not cutting edge..."

Adena is a keen observer and intelligent reporter. We can't all attend all the conferences and meetings there are in the geospatial world. But when someone is doing a good job blogging them, and Adena does, it pays to read along from afar.

Visualizing Internal Migration

Two newspapers, the Charlotte Observer and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, have put together an on-line map to present a graphic look at IRS migration data.

IRS migration data are often used in population estimates and projections programs.

The map allows users to select a county and see graphically, and in tabular form, where in-migrants came from and where out-migrants went to. The map data is limited to county-to-county migration within the US. The tabular presentation also lists international migration (and non-movers) and presents median household income for each group.

The graphic shown here is a national-level view of where in-migrants into Maricopa County, Arizona, originated. Maricopa County was recently listed by the Census Bureau as having the largest numerical population increase since the 2000 Census.

FCW: NACo Endorses GISCI

Federal Computer Week has a short story about an endorsement of the GIS Certification Institute by the GIS Committee of the National Association of Counties.

In the story -- County group endorses GIS certification -- GISCI head Scott Grams also points to endorsements by state GIS Councils:

State geographic-information councils have also shown interest in GIS certification. In 2004, North Carolina became the first state to endorse the institute’s program. Oregon’s geographic-information council has also endorsed certification, Grams said. Those were unsolicited endorsements, he added.

NY Times on GIS Jobs

The New York Times has a look at GIS jobs in its "Fresh Starts" section of August 12. The article, Technology Reveals New Worlds to Map, looks at geospatial work as a growing new area of employment.

More companies see the value of G.I.S. services, and there are not enough people to fill all the available jobs, said Richard Serby, a founder of GeoSearch, which recruits people for jobs in mapping sciences.

The article profiles a few workers in different parts of the industry and makes note of the GIS Certification Institute. (VIA All Points Blog)

LA Times Adds a Geospatial View to its Collection of Homicide Data

The Los Angeles Times this year has been using a blog to track all of the homicides in Los Angles County this year. The Homicide Report has a simple mission:

The report seeks to reverse an age-old paradox of big-city crime reporting, which dictates that only the most unusual and statistically marginal homicide cases receive press coverage, while those cases at the very eye of the storm -- those which best expose the true statistical dimensions of the problem of deadly violence -- remain hidden. (From an early "what is" post)

This week, an interactive map and database interface has been added, apparently coded by a professor at USC. It includes a filtering function, search, listings, and a geospatial display created using Google Maps.

It's not clear based on my brief poking around the site, what the back-end consists of, though it appears to be some form of simple server-side database query that exports XML or GeoRSS. The user interface allows "export" to GeoRSS or KML; the URLs that are returned are formated "getSavedQueryResults" commands.

The new web map interface strikes a nice balance between simple information presentation and a robust data query interface.

Job Posting: WV GIS Coordinator

The WV Geological Survey (State Agency) seeks to fill the Statewide Geographic Information System Coordinator (GIS) position which is housed in Charleston, WV. Interested candidates should respond by Friday, September 7, 2007.

Link: www.nsgic.org/news/giscoordinator.cfm