South Carolina Publishes a Guide to Developing Data Access Policies

Editor's Note: The following is a guest-post from Dr. Timothy M. De Troye, GISP, South Carolina State GIS Coordinator and member of the NSGIC Board of Directors.

The Geospatial Administrators Association of South Carolina has published a guide to help local governments, as well as all other levels of government and the private sector, develop and implement GIS data access policies.

The guide -- A Process Framework for Developing Local Government Data Access Policies (PDF) -- grew out of discussions at the 2009 South Carolina statewide GIS conference. An informal poll discovered that some GIS organizations did not have a GIS data access policy, while others had a rudimentary policy, but almost no organization had a formalized approach in developing such policies. that led to a project focused on data access, data distribution and permitted uses that resulted in the creation of a guide to help GIS departments to step through the thought process on developing a policy.

The guide takes into account key stakeholder personnel, different types of data, and different approaches to managing that data. Contributions to the document came from multiple organizations and levels of government including municipal, county, state, and federal agencies as well as from a utility. While the document is written with the local organization in mind, it is applicable to different levels of government and can be used as a vehicle for policy development within the private sector.

From the Overview:

In many organizations, the GIS manager has been charged with establishing GIS data access policy for the organization without the official authority to do so and without understanding the implications associated with policy implementation. Often, the result is a policy that is not formally adopted or a policy that has been established strictly from a legal perspective.

The document serves as a process framework for developing an effective GIS data access policy. GIS managers can use this framework to help decision makers understand and formulate a GIS data access policy for their entire organization. The process encourages decision makers to review options for data distribution and carefully consider how implementing a policy will impact the organization, staff, private citizens, the business community, and other government
agencies.

The goal is to enlighten and inform decision makers about specific GIS data access policy decisions. The goal is not for all government organizations to have the same policies, but for each organization to formulate policies using an informed and well thought out process.

The document outlines a series of data access policy components that should be considered during policy development. Information about the components, suggested participants, and potential implications are presented for each. Readers are encouraged to utilize these components as a framework for policy development and to expand the content as needed to address the specific concerns of their organization.

To help facilitate understanding and discussion, the document is written from the perspective of a non-GIS practitioner. This is the product of a collaborative effort among members of the Geospatial Administrators Association of South Carolina (GAASC).