2007 on the NSGIC Blog

The NSGIC Blog received 5,401 visits during 2007, with 8,107 different "page views" according to data collected via Google Analytics. There were 75 different posts covering topics ranging from NSGIC meetings and business to the latest on-line map mash-ups.

The large majority of visitors came from within the United States, though there were a handful of visitors from Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Spain and a few other nations. There were visits from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, but the largest number of visits was from Pennsylvania, followed by Ohio, Delaware, Wisconsin, and California.

More than half of the page views were of the NSGIC Blog main page, suggesting that most visitors read the top few blog posts that were available at the time of their visit. Among individual blog posts that were viewed directly, some the most visited were:

• Former NSGIC Keynote Speaker Matt Miszewski to Step Down, a post about the resignation of the Wisconsin CIO who had been a keynote speaker at the 2006 NSGIC Annual Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas.
• How Remote is Your Sensed Data?, a post about geospatial analysis using "found" geodata.
• "Part of our Ecosystem", a post about recent discussions of the growth of Google and other data visualization tools.
• Transportation for the Nation, an overview of the NSGIC effort to craft a national transportation data approach.
  

The NSGIC Blog has been active since early in 2006. NSGIC leadership placed a focus on the blog starting in 2007 and various members of the NSGIC Communications Committee have started trying to add posts on a more regular basis.

There are several different ways to take advantage of the NSGIC Blog. Readers can subscribe via an RSS feed of posts and/or via an e-mail subscription service that provides a daily digest of any new posts.

Job Posting: Maine GIS Coordinator

The State of Maine is advertising for a Systems Group Manager for the Maine Office of GIS (MEGIS). This is a position that appears to be GIS Coordinator for the state.

The previous head of the Office, Dan Walters, has taken a job with the USGS. The job posting (WORD), on the Direct Hire page of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services web site, outlines the role of a GIS Coordinator:

As the System Group Manager, you will be responsible for directing the MEGIS program and facility, including designing and managing the GIS development plan, a general GIS database, managing the activities of MEGIS staff personnel, coordinating with other departments on GIS matters, facilitating statewide GIS policy with the interagency Stakeholders committee, and representing Maine State Government GIS outside of Maine State Government.

The job is in Augusta, Maine. The closing date on the job posting is November 2.

RAMONA 2.0 Released!

As we noted in January, the new and improved Version 2 of RAMONA has been released.

The latest version of NSGIC's GIS inventory tool includes a few upgrades and improvements, including faster and more dependable web-hosting, enhanced tools for both the users and the state-level administrators, and improved integration with the federal government's Geospatial One-Stop (GOS).

State GIS Coordinators interested in adding their states to the Ramona network should contact Jill Saligoe-Simmel.

Now There are No Excuses: We Know What "Metadata" Means!

Today's Word of the Day, at Miriam Webster, is "metadata."

metadata • \met-uh-DAY-tuh\ • noun
: data that provides information about other data

Let there be no mistake.

Coming Soon: Ramona 2.0

NSGIC expects the release of Ramona Version 2.0 shortly. This update will include several enhancements for users and state-level Ramona administrators.

There are 1,180 users currently registered in Ramona, documenting their geospatial data policies and practices, and 4,237 data layers. This is just the tip of an iceberg whose full dimensions will become more apparent as more states roll-out their nodes on the network.

The NSGIC Ramona Working group plans to offer several Web-Ex remote training sessions to introduce state-level administrators to Ramona 2.0 features. These include, for users, better performance, auto-save on data layers, and more security for contact information. For administrators, the enhancements include advanced search capabilities, flexible report generation, the ability to add extra state-specific questions, and accessible metadata for users.

State GIS Coordinators interested in adding their states to the Ramona network should contact Jill Saligoe-Simmel.