deep vs. wide

A challenge in developing both the Strategic Plan update as well as the Property Boundary Data Capture and Integration Framework will be establishing the right sample of stakeholder input.

Do we use a small sample and examine the needs and capabilities to an extreme level of detail?
Or do we census a wide stakeholder base and solicit from each only a small amount of pertinent information?

These are vital questions to answer before initiating the project. In the first case, we would need to winnow down the specifics of who needs to be interviewed. In the second, we must focus intensely on what we need to ask.

pta - blog basics

Public, Transparent, Accessible.
In order for this project to be successful there will need to be significant participation by geospatial data and application stakeholders at all levels of government and from the private sector. We will try to use the best tools available to make participation as easy as possible.

This blog is one of the tools we will use to encourage and solicit input. Frequent project updates and developments will be posted here by the project team, and all content will be open to reader input through the Comments links or via email to authors of the post.

In keeping with standard blog convention, posts will be sorted to display newest first. So if you are interested in reading through in chronological order just start from the back and keep reading forward.

If you wish to be be alerted to updates as they are made you can go here to make them available to your feed reader or click on the Subscribe to: Posts link at the bottom of this page.

You can also just bookmark this page and check back frequently.

geospatial planning: 2008

The State of Maine is about to embark on a new geographic information systems (GIS) planning process. There will be two primary areas of investigation as this study proceeds. These are

• Updating and enhancing the GeoLibrary Strategic Plan of 2002 to bring it into alignment with the goals of the National States' Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) Fifty States Initiative. Plan update activities will focus on coordination with local governments, academics, and others; development of sustainable funding sources; and cultivation of political champions to grow future geospatial initiatives.
  

• Developing a functional specification for an Integrated Land Records Information System for Maine. This system design will feature a sustainable political and technical architecture that delivers parcel-level data statewide, including content from municipalities, county deed registries and additional public and commercial stakeholders, and will honor or extend existing process and data standards at state and federal levels.

This initiative is primarily funded by the federal government through the US Geological Survey's Federal Geographic Data Committee. The grant application was assembled by the Maine Library of Geographic Information (GeoLibrary) and Maine's Office of GIS and awarded in early 2007.