An Interview With an NGAC Member

You might have caught this in the State GIS News portion of the NSGIC Blog sidebar, but I thought the recent interview with a member of National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) from the Wisconsin Mapping Bulletin interesting enough to call your attention to it here as well.

The NGAC membership includes Wisconsin's Don Dittmar, a county Land Information Manager, who was interviewed for the Bulletin by Ted Koch.

Mr. Dittmar explains some of the workings of the group and some of the dynamics that he has seen develop in the first few meetings. He adds a note about the NGAC's purpose:

I think now our most important mission is to refocus the FGDC on building the NSDI with particular attention paid to building on local data, the data that is, for the most part, created at the source.

This interview is worth a read; I don't want to dilute it by just extracting the quotes that resonate with me. Head on over to the Wisconsin Mapping Bulletin and see what you think.

Promotional Phase of Census Bureau's LUCA Process to Start in January

State GIS Coordinators should expect to see letters from the US Census Bureau in the new year promoting the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) process, which will kick into gear in the spring.

According to a report Census staff made to a recent meeting of the National State Data Center Steering Committee, informational letters will be sent in January to elected officials, GIS coordinators, LUCA contacts, and BAS (Boundary and Annexation Survey) contacts to let them know that LUCA is on its way.

In a first phase, there will be LUCA workshops in the early spring in each state to introduce the concept of LUCA and lay-out the various options for participation. These will include some technical content, but will be designed to introduce the program to local leaders and encourage participation.

As reported earlier on the NSGIC Blog, there will be three possible levels of participation, ranging from the technically advanced and restricted by confidentiality agreement to the less advanced and less restricted.

A second phase, in July, will seek commitment from local governments; this will include invitation letters and registration materials. For those wanting to do a full review, these will also include confidentiality agreements and security checklists required under Title 13 of the US Code.

The Census Bureau is working with State Census Data Centers (SDCs) on the promotional workshops and has asked the SDCs to help review the technical training information. It seems likely that SDCs and GIS Coordinators will want to work together to make sure that the training works well for the local governments they both serve.

According to Census Staff, the training as now configured will take 4.5 to 5 hours. They would like to shorten it, if possible. The training materials will be standardized, nationally, but will be flexible enough to adjust to local needs. It will not be a "hands-on" computer training; there will be a PowerPoint overview of the Bureau's software and processes for LUCA review.