Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has been gaining large strides over the past few years in the GIS sector. VGI is becoming more then just geotagged photographs on Flickr and mashups of Google Earth and Google Maps. It has become part of many successful organizations’’ strategies for sharing data, engaging potential collaborators, and gathering public input. This presentation will explore three project overviews of how VGI practices have provided the foundation for engaging the public to become better partners: from data sharing through the City of Seattle Open Data initiatives, collaboration for project prioritization with the Office of Species Conservation, to gathering historical property information for the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.

1. Volunteered Geographic
Information (VGI) – More than
just dots on a map… Insert Photo Here:
Something that
NWGIS User Conference represents the
Spokane, Washington industry/market
this solution
September 17, 2010
address
Chris Bellusci
Scot McQueen

2. Agenda
 Introduction
 GeoEngineers Overview
 What is VGI?
 VGI – Gathering Public Input
 VGI – Transparency in Government
 VGI - Framework for Collaboration
 Questions/Answers

3. GeoEngineers - Earth Sciences + Technology
Development &
Redevelopment
Energy
Federal
Water & Natural
Resources
Transportation

4. GeoEngineers - Earth Sciences + Technology
Water &
Transportation Energy Federal Development & Applied
Natural
Market Market Market Redevelopment Technology
Resources
Market Market Market
Market Market Market
Industries: Industries: Industries:
Industries: Industries: Industries:
· Electric Utilities Agriculture, Information
· Marine Ports BLM, HLS, Banking/Financial
· Oil and Gas Tribes, Forestry, Technology,
· Railroads Defense, Public Services, Real
· Pipelines Mining, Business
· DOTS Safety, Law Estate,
· Renewable Environmental Infrastructure,
Enforcement Developers,
Energy Management, System
Conservation Integration/
Implementation
· Emergency · Emergency · GIS/IT
Management Management Strategic Plans
· · · Executive · System
Port Enviro COP · Land
Remediation Dashboards Dashboards Integration
· Management
Corridor
· · Land · Data
Solution
Routing
Computer · Demographic
· Asset Mgmt Aided Dispatch Management Management
· Studies
Smart Grid
· Systems · Planning/
System
·
Asset · Asset
· Corridor
Incident
Management · Asset Analysis
Management
Management
· Management · Operational
Routing
·
Predictive · Predictive
systems
Vegetation
Modeling · Predictive Awareness
Managment Modeling
Modeling

5. Applied Technology – Solutions
GeoPredict
Watershed
Prioritization
Mobile
Environmental Remediation

6. VGI – What is it?
Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is the
harnessing of tools to create, assemble, and disseminate
geographic data provided voluntarily by individuals
(Goodchild, 2007).
 Geotagging
 Geosocial networking
 Collaborative mapping
 Spatial Crowdsourcing
…all made feasible within the last 5 years by web
technologies

7. VGI – Is it good or evil?
Better question:
How can we
leverage this to get
important work
done?

8. VGI – Gathering information from the public…
 Budget cuts
 Staff reductions
 Increased Public awareness
and/or frustration
 Transparency in Government
…And a “Google Generation”

9. VGI – Gathering
Public Input
Department of Archaeology and
Historic Preservation

10. Historic Property Inventory (HPI) – Project Problem

11. Historic Property Inventory – Our Approach
 Manage data from historic property inventory surveys
conducted by private and public entities and citizens.
 Leverage “volunteer” GIS or data management concept
 Over 60,000 properties in system
 400 registered users (other agencies, partners,
neighborhood assoc., etc.)

12. Historic Property Inventory – Integration
SAW is a single entry
• Text portal for applications
owned/hosted by
Washington State DIS
HPI is the first ArcGIS
Server application
integrated with SAW

13. Historic Property Inventory – Spatial Editing
Create an inventory – look for
existing properties or add new one
Performs spatial queries to pull in
attribute data like county, PLSS,
and quad names

14. Historic Property Inventory – Query and Report Data
User sees “dashboard” of
their respective surveys
Each survey contains 1 or
even thousands of individual
properties or inventories.

15. Historic Property Inventory – Rich User Experience
It’s all about the data -
capturing rich information
supplied and maintained
by the public.

16. VGI – Transparency in
Government

17. City of Seattle
Spatial Data Sharing

18. City of Seattle – Project Problem
• Seattle home to multiple technology companies
• Seattle Mayor McGinn Open Data Initiative -
mandates sharing all City data
• Wants to engage potential collaborators to utilize
them to meet public needs
• Releases http://data.seattle.gov for tabular data but
no geospatial component

19. City of Seattle – Project Problem
 How do we best integrate the City’s GIS data
into this framework to meet the Mayor’s
initiative?

20. OneBusAway – Poster child for Mayor’s Goals

21. Data Sharing Workshops - Findings
1. Inadequate metadata existed for spatial data
2. Vision for data sharing “why and how” not clear to public
or internally
3. Clear path to collaboration not established – public
outreach and support needed
4. Existing data.seattle.gov lacked GIS integration
capabilities
5. No mechanism to share GIS data internally or to the
public

22. Data Sharing - Recommendations
1. Develop a Communication Plan for data sharing
a) Clear public communication and outreach
b) Stewardship approach of online GIS data sharing
c) Identification of intended Users (public,
expert/scientific users, developers, internal
departments)
d) Collaboration Framework – lays groundwork for
partnerships
e) Public Contests – intent and timelines

23. Open Data - Communication Plan

24. Communication Plan Embodied
Expand concept for each user type
Open data advertised
on initial web page

25. Example of
structuring the
communication of
the data/
resources available
Clear communication
about data maintenance
and enhancements
as well as Governance
issues

26. GIS/Spatial Data - Recommendations
1. Prioritize, consolidate, and archive GIS data
2. Develop a Role-based User access management Plan
3. Complete a minimum level of metadata – 11 key
elements
4. Optimize risk assessment process and utilize for GIS
datasets
5. Implement near- and long-term data update plans
6. Establish Hosting Capacity Requirements

27. Infrastructure - Recommendations
1. Utilize ESRI’s GeoPortal Extension to Extend
data.seattle.gov
a) City has ELA with ESRI
b) Extension has been implemented widely
c) Full integration with ArcGIS desktop speeding data and metadata
latency
2. Host a “Data Sharing Platform Integration” workshop
a) Include appropriate City, ESRI, and Socrata staff
b) Require software partners to participate to retain role in data
sharing at the City
c) Goal: Develop integration points between the two platforms

28. Make it easier to find
Seattle based apps.
Particularly those that
are in alignment with
the vision for the city.
Develop User
Group Specific
communication

29. Data Sharing - Platform Integration Workshop

30. VGI – Framework for
Collaboration
Idaho Office of Species
Consvervation

31. Idaho Office of Species Conservation (OSC)

32. Business Problem – Watershed Project Prioritization

33. OSC – Business Problem
Public Support
through visibility
Possible Grant
Prioritization Score/Report Funding

34. OSC – Solution Framework
Scalable •Designed to work with both hosted and
cloud environments
Architecture
Web •Built on top of DotNetNuke Web Content
Management Framework
Frameworks •Open Source Framework
ArcGIS Server •Built using ESRI’s new Feature Server
Editing Capabilities
10
•Leverages DotNetNuke Security Model
Security •Active Directory or SQL Authentication

35. OSC – End User Involvement and Collaboration
Registered users
create, modify,
and report spatial
content in a
collaborative
framework
ArcGIS Server 10 – REST Editing Framework and ArcGIS Server Silverlight API

36. VGI – Lessons Learned
• Have a plan and dynamic way of delivering it
• Why you’re doing it,
• What you want
• How collaboration happens
• Get your data in order
• Metadata – 11 key elements
• “Templates” and Design overcome “authoritative data” problems
• Engage the lawyers…
• Solid Technology Framework
• Allows interaction at different levels (public, expert, developer, internal)
• Allows different solutions to come together (ESRI, Google, Socrata, etc)
• Understand Total Cost of Ownership
• Path to funding mechanisms

37. Discussion/Questions
Chris Bellusci
Email: cbellusci@geoengineers.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbellusci
Scot McQueen
Email: smcqueen@geoengineers.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scotmcqueen

38. Recommendations - Elements of Metadata as Applied to City of Seattle GIS Data Management
Standard Metadata Elements SPU Considerations Recommended Metadata attributes and
elements.
1. Content Description (abstract, Metadata management Meta management tools
purpose)
Planning for strategic content keywords
2. Content Keywords (theme and
Categorize content keywords
place keywords)
3. Time Period of Content
(beginning/end dates)
4. Distribution Information
User Group Identification
( which user group/s will be
able to view/access the data)
5. Publishing Identification
Information
6. Currentness Reference Identify update requirements and set Metadata management tool to track, sort,
(publication date, revision date) schedule update data, and to alert time-incremental data
update requirements (annual updates, etc)
7. Content Status (complete, in work, Maintenance and Update Frequency
planned)
8. Spatial Domain Bounding Coordinates Metadata management tools to track and
(geographic domain of the data manage domain information.
West, East, North, South
set)
9. Spatial Data Information Data Projection Meta data attributes
Data Type (vector, grid) Management tool
Data Format (Shapefile, geodatabase,
etc.)
10. Access Constraints Restrictions and legal prerequisites Implement or leverage tool components which
(limits on data accessibility) for accessing the data set. allow for user authentication within a specified
user group.
User accountability.
User contact information.
11. Use Constraints Restrictions and legal prerequisites Implement or leverage tool components which
(limits on data use) for using the data set after access is allow for user authentication within a specified
granted. user group.
User accountability.
User contact information.