The National Environmental Information Infrastructure (NEII) aims to improve the discovery of and access to fundamental environmental data for Australia. It has been conceived as a network of standards-based IT components supported by institutional collaborations. Information infrastructures (II), also known as systems of systems, comprise information systems that are inter-connected rather than being independent and disconnected. Developing and sustaining II represents an interwoven socio-technical challenge. II typically evolve over a long period of time, building on and extending existing infrastructure or ‘installed base’. The nature of the “installed base”, including both ‘social’ aspects such as standards, work routines, and institutional arrangements, interwoven with information and technology resources, influences the design of new elements (Hanseth, Monteiro et al. 1996). In Australia, the installed base of environmental information infrastructure is complex, with a large number of interwoven technical infrastructure development activities and governance mechanisms. The limits of ‘governance’ Institutional arrangements have long been recognised as a key enabler for II (Coleman and McLaughlin 1998, Masser 1999, Masser 2005, Lance, Georgiadou et al. 2009), enabling community efforts to build and maintain infrastructure. A key function of institutional arraignments is governance which provides ‘steering’, collaborative decision making and accountability mechanisms. Governance comprises: the rules, policies and mandates; institutional frameworks and processes that enable communities to develop, manage and implement agreements enabling access to information resources (Box 2013). However, a range of ‘social’ issues much broader than governance influence II implementation. These include: barriers to and motivation and mechanisms to support collective action and participation, trust and leadership. Given the typically large number and complexity of relationships between II stakeholders, addressing these concerns is a challenge. Understanding and navigating this complex landscape of relationships, personal and institutional drivers and blockers for participation is a key success factor for II. A social architecture This presentation will present a ‘social architecture’ that has been developed to guide the NEII programme in addressing concerns in the social domain. The term social architecture refers to social aspects of infrastructure development with a particular focus on governance, participation and the management of the agreements that together define how II stakeholders collaborate to achieve collective goals. Results of a review of II initiatives undertaken to identify common themes and lessons learned that could be applied to NEII will be presented together with recommendations for applying the social architecture to the NEII.

1. Social architecture for the National Environmental
Information Infrastructure (NEII)
Locate 15
Brisbane 10-12 March 2015
Paul Box
LAND AND WATER FLAGSHIP
CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology

2. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
A National Environmental
Information Infrastructure
What ?
• A network of
environmental data nodes
around a central
coordinating core
Why ?
• Improve discovery, access
and re-use of national
environmental data
How ?
- A network of environmental data nodes around a central coordinating core
- Improve discovery, access and re-use of national environmental data
- Standards-based architecture (Reference Architecture) & core IT components
- Collaboration mechanisms that engender adoption and sustainability
- Non-technical enablers (policies and frameworks)
Empowering Australian’s discovery, access and re-use of environmental
information for informed decision-making
Source: Bureau of Meteorology - NEII Programme
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box2 |

3. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Information Infrastructure
• Installed base - ‘shared, evolving, open, standardized, and heterogeneous’
• Standards
• Standardisation Vs flexibility
• Bottom-up (local) Vs top down (universal)
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box
World Standards Day - 14 October but….
- US – celebrate on 23 October
- Canada – celebrates on a date 'near the 14th‘
3 |

4. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Information Infrastructure - a socio-technical endeavour
Technical framework
Information & technology components
Social framework
• institutional arrangements
• people
• relationships & trust
• standards
• culture
• practices
• norms
Greatest organisational
effectiveness when technology
systems fit social system
© Ralph SteinerSocial Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box4 |

5. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
NEII context – ‘frameworks’
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box5 |

6. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
• Significant installed base
• Technical – data services, catalogues, portals
• Social – governance, agreements, standards, mandate, relationships, trust
• NEII governance – embedded, overlapping & complex enclosing governance
arrangements
NEII Context - Environmental II landscape
NEII
NPEI
NCRIS
TERN IMOS
ALA
ANDS Foundation
Spatial Data
Framework
(ANZLIC)
National Coordinating Committees
Land Use -
NCLUMI
Rangeland
ACRISMC
Veg.
ESCAVI
Soil
NCST
NSW
NR
ATLAS
Jurisdictions
Environment domain
?
Essential
Statistical
Infrastructure
(ABS)
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box6 |

7. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
CC SA 2.0 Pedro Szekely
Social architecture
Conscious design of an
environment that encourages a
desired range of social behaviours
leading towards some goals
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box7 |

8. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
images : Galoppin, L. (2011). A Short Q&A on Social Architecture. Online Magazine
for Organizational Change Practitioners. G. Luc. Brussels, Belgium. 2015.
Why social architecture?
Governance - embedded, overlapping
Participation - numerous independent interacting communities

9. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Social architecture for NEII
social lens to
complement the
technical perspective
National Environmental
Information Infrastructure
Agreement
Framework
(‘Rules of the
game’)Participation
(Rowing)
Governance
(Steering)
Context :
Jurisdictional & domain
legislative, policy
& standards
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box9 |

10. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
II landscape review
• Case selection
• federated
• mature governance
• limited or no legislatively backing
• International
– INSPIRE
– New Zealand SDI (NZSDI)
– Canadian Geospatial Data Initiative (CGDI)
• Domestic
– Australian National Data Service (ANDS) RDA
– Atlas of Living Australia (ALA)
– Foundation Spatial Data Framework (FSDF)
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box10 |

11. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Case comparison
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box
Initiative Information
scope
Scale and
participation
Federated data Status Legislation Central
funding
Lead agency with
multiple roles
Dedicated
lead agency1
Lead
hosts/operate
s common
infra.
Lead allocates /
disburses funding 2
INSPIRE Geospatial,
environmental
Multi-national Yes EU Member States Build Yes No Yes - EU JRC No Yes No
CGDI Geospatial,
multiple themes
National Yes Provinces +
Federal
Operational No Yes Yes - NR Canada No Yes Yes
NZSDI Geospatial,
multiple themes
National No – though data
sourced from local
govt.
Design No No Yes – LINZ No No No
FSDF Geospatial,
multiple themes
National Yes Australian
Governments
Design No No Yes – Dept. of
Communication
No No No
ALA Geospatial &
observational,
species
National Yes Australian
Governments
Operational No Yes Yes – CSIRO No Yes Yes
ANDS
RDA
Research data National Yes but not primarily
engaged with Govt.
Operational No Yes YES – ANDS Yes Yes Yes
NEII Geospatial &
observational,
environmental
National Yes Design No No YES – BoM No Yes No
1 Has the lead agency been established in the context of the II initiative?
2 Does the lead agency determine and manage allocation of funding to participants to enable their participation
11 |

12. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Key messages – Governance
• Representation (CGDI, INSPIRE, NZSDI, FSDF). Broad inclusive governance
• Leadership (CGDI, ALA, FSDF). High level WoG leadership and priority setting - top down drivers and
coherence
• Lead agency multiple roles (ALA) - trusted to lead because of expertise and proven record in domain.
• Funding and legislation (NZSDI, FSDF). Without a stick or carrot soft approach required
• Accountability
• (NZSDI) - ‘coalition of the willing’ – may lack sufficient accountability
• (FSDF) - Informal accountability operates in parallel and is powerful motivator
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box12 |

13. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Key messages - Participation
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box13 |
• Importance of key individuals (CGSDI, NZSDI, ALA, ANDS, FSDF). Trusted leaders. strong senior champions
within participating organisations.
• Motivation (INSPIRE, ALA, ANDS, FSDF). Recognition for participating individuals & organisations.
• Role of networks (INSPIRE, CGDI, ANDS, ALA, FSDF). leverage self-organising communities that form
around technical and domain issues and expertise.
• Communication (INSPIRE, CGDI, ANDS, FSDF). Need for coordination, communication, and awareness at
senior level.
• Capacity building and support for communities (INSPIRE, CGDI, FSDF). Assist & guide less mature
communities and leverage experiences/capabilities of mature ones.
• Participation and stakeholder engagement (INSPIRE, ALA, FSDF). Stakeholder engagement in development
phase helps build capacity and share best practices.

14. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Key messages - Agreements
• Licencing (INSPIRE, CGDI, ANDS, ALA, FSDF) - common (standard) licencing frameworks key for effective data sharing.
Many licenses is a 'bureaucratic overload'.
• Data access (INSPIRE, CGDI, ANDS,ALA, FSDF) - major barriers to access are policy, organisational, legal, and cultural.
Open data initiatives have helped.
• Rights in data (ALA) obtaining permissions & attribution of data rights holders is key –difficult in practice
• Legacy arrangements - data rights, structure, access may impact on ability to share data
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box14 |

15. Applying the model
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box15 |

16. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Federated governance
• Authority structure - organisational
structures for collective decision making
• Representation & hats
• Agreements - the unit of transaction
• Delegation
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box
Authority structure
Scope
Authority
structure
Delegation
Representation
Membership
& roles
Cross-cutting
Domain
‘authority structures’ & decision making processes, by which
communities manage their collective affairs through a continuous
process of negotiation & decision-making
16 |

17. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Jurisdictional
legislative, policy
& standards context(s)
Social architecture for NEII
Organisation
(data provider)
Data &
services
Policy &
standards
Org 1 Org 2 Org 3
Information
community 2
Information community 1
Infrastructure
(participation)Governance
Policy &
standards
Org n
National Environmental
Information Infrastructure
Agreement
Framework
(‘Rules of the
game’)Participation
(Rowing)
Governance
(Steering)
Appointing/delegating/representation
Authority Structure
- NEII programme governance
- NEII domain governance
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box17 |

18. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Jurisdictional
legislative, policy
& standards context(s)
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box
Agreements Framework
National Environmental
Information Infrastructure
Authority
structure
Scope
Authority
structure
Delegation
Registry
Submitter
Decision authority
(Register owner)
Control body
Regi
ster
ISO19135
Register manager
Registry
manager
Agreements
Agreements
Agreements
Agreements
Registration
18 |

19. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Types of agreements
• Jurisdictional legislation & policy
• Technology standards – how tech. behaves- e.g. WMS
• Data format standards
• Information standards
• Information semantics – controlled vocabularies
• Information models - exchange standards
• Data access agreements - data sharing agreements & data
licencing
• Service agreements –SLA/OLA
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box
Jurisdictional
NEII
Domain-
specific
Resource
specific
19 |

20. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Participation
Context
• Distributed, fragmented resources, mandate & capability
• Different motivation, drivers, timeframes, mandate, capacity to participate in NEII
Role
• Enable and motivate community participation to:
– Share EI
– Develop & curate EI content standards
– Share knowledge & develop capability
• Leverage, align, mediate, bridge existing capability
• Encourage, facilitate, guide, participants to implement agreements
• Minimise impost/cost on participants
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box20 |

21. Collaboration Continuum
Compete Co-exist Communicate Cooperate Coordinate Collaborate Integrate
Competition for
clients, resources,
partners, public
attention.
No systematic
connection between
agencies.
Inter-agency
information sharing
e.g. networking
As needed, informal,
interaction on
discrete activities or
projects.
Org’s systematically
adjust and align work
with each other
Longer term
interaction based
on shared goals
Fully integrated
programs planning,
funding.
Alignment of
common agenda &
measures for a
shared vision
Collective
Impact
Adapted from: Kerry Graham Collective Impact consultant – WWf 2014
Turf
Trust
21 | Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box
CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology

22. CSIRO
Bureau of Meteorology
Summary
• Governance and agreements – ‘rules of the game’
• Governance and participation – ‘skin in the game’
• Recognising there are multiple games
• Federation to domains
• Watch this space
http://www.bom.gov.au/environment/publications.shtml
Social Architecture for the NEII - Locate 15 | Paul Box22 |

23. Paul Box
t: +61 2 93253122
e: paul.j.box@csiro.au
w: www.csiro.au
DIGITAL PRODUCTIVITY FLAGSHIP
Thank you
CSIRO
Land and Water Flagship