#NSGICMidyear: National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC)  Update

Anne Hale Miglarese provided a “state of NGAC” presentation. There are new members to the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) which provides advice and recommendations on federal geospatial policy and management issues and to share views representative of the geospatial community.

The current and emerging topics that NGAC is considering/working on/may work on:
- Place-based Policies Initiative
- Cloud Computing
- National Map Feeback
- Participation in FGDC Virtual Forum Initiative
- NSDI Markers
- Best Practices/Measures of Success

Next http://www.fgdc.gov/ngac/meetings/march-2010/index_html”>meeting March 24-25, Washington, DC includes review of guidance, committee structure and cloud computing.

Q: NGAC to broadcast meetings somehow?
A: We’ve done it twice, may do it again. It would be nice to do it more.

Q: ROI work?
A: We’ve discussed the need for a defensible document, but haven’t been charged with that. FGDC put an ROI category in the CAP grants.

Q: What were the issues on The National Map?
A: The team presented the plan to NGAC last year. There was no clear path - but we created a subcommittee to explore how we could engage them and provide feedback. We are trying to help them with their strategic plan.

#NSGICMidyear: Corporate Leadership Council Session

The Corporate Leadership Council Session (aka sponsor talks) allows major sponsors to talk about their latest can greatest tech or projects. They each had eight minutes.

AECOM: There are public and private clouds and many providers. Clouds have many benefits (low resource requirements) and challenges (security, availability). AECOM takes a guarded approach (private clouds, mostly)

ESRI: A discussion of societal GIS and crowdsourcing. Examples: MD StateStat,  Arkansas iPhone App, Haiti/Chile Earthquakes and Crisis Camps. We are moving from presentation to interaction (that is citizens can provide input). Tech for gathering this will be in ArcGIS 10.

Fugro EarthData: Most significant change in photogrammetry was from film to digital. A review of advances in digital of late: solid state storage, quicker CCD response, radiometric sensitivity. Latest change is the move to panoramic mapping systems - which increases field of view from 45 degrees to about 105 degrees. You can use multiple digital cameras at once or a sweeping lens (Fugro uses the latter.) With these you can capture orthos, but also obliques. Advantages: both vertical and oblique at once, 3” to 1’ GSD imagery, multiple oblique angles, true 3D building modeling. Advances in data exploitation: stereo compilation tools for non-experts.

Michael Baker: A discussion of mobile LiDAR, which is basically LiDAR on a van. It can capture data at 60 mph that can be used to model cityscapes.

NAVTEQ: NAVTEQ True(TM) a new data capture technology which uses mobile Lidar among things. The system can detail where the lane is and what the hours are of a store are.

Northrop Grumman: The latest in LiDAR developments.

North West Geomatics: Semi-automated digital surface model extraction techniques.

Sanborn: Applications of mobile and airborne LiDAR used together.

Surdex: Products that can be made from airborne LiDAR.

#NSGICMidyear: Congressional Research Service Briefing

Paul Schirle and Jan Johansson of Congressional Research Service (arm of the Library of Congress) spoke to us about that organization. It was founded in 1914 and has about 700 people who offer nonpartisan info in timely fashion. (Sometimes read live on TV via Blackberry!) We support Congress throughout a bill’s life cycle. Sometimes we can’t be authoritative so we don’t provide an answer.

CRS launched a GIS in 2009 to do spatial analysis for Congress (from simple to complex). Congress likes geospatial analysis because it helps them understand, reveals consequences/impacts that might be otherwise concealed, helps them relate their work back to their constituencies.

Some examples of what CRS does (faked up to maintain confidentiality): A bill has geography but no map. We can overlay data on a map to find out what counties are impacted. We can bring in data from databases. Ranking, then mapping geographies.

Challenges CRS faces: hundreds of requests, tight deadlines, unfamiliar datasets, unique questions, deal with all levels of geography, comparing domestic and international data.

Advantages of state and local data to Congress:

- Get best, most up do date data, details of creations, etc.
- Statewide clearninghouses with standardized data is immediately useful
- State Clearinghouses can help us: help us find it, assure authoritativeness, make it easier to do nationwide analysis, preservation and maintenance of data

Conclusions:

- Congress doesn’t know to ask about parcel level data, but there are issues of privacy
- Clearinghouses are important to us and thus to you since they enable better decisions
- We want to connect to your authoritative data for redoing analyses over time

Q&A (paraphrased)

Q: How can you help us advocate to Congress.
A: Not really our role; we respond to Congresses requests. But recent reports (GIS Issues and Challenges (pdf, Issues Regarding a National Land Parcel Database (pdf) are helping them realize the value. (Szolt Nagy: with this info you can tell your Congresspeople the value of data to his or her work!)

Q: How do you know when data is authoritative? How do you/we archive for 15 years when technology changes?
A: Authoritativeness is really hard - we look at: methodology to create it, “test the data against itself,” have our specialists have a look. Also look to metadata, back to the source person - though this is time consuming. Try to avoid aggregators (sorry Geocommons!) Archiving is a challenge - we hope to find solutions so we can make a case that Fed should archive it when states can’t anymore. See also: GeoMapp archiving project.

#NSGICMidyear: FCC Update/Broadband Mapping

Mike Byrne (ex GIO from California) is now GIO for the Federal Communications Commission. He provided an update on what’s going on at FCC.

The FCC website will be updated (beta site); it’s not too great now. FCC is partnering with National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on broadband efforts focusing on data integration/validation. A set of crowdsourcing tools will go live tomorrow (Tuesday, hopefully) to find speed testing (two different tests) and note if you do/don’t have broadband access. It’ll be available for iPhone/Android, too.  It’ll be at broadband.gov. Data will come in to FCC, be geododed and be part of its data sources. We want to see if this is a valuable way to collect data.

Also coming: a spectrum viewer (search by license, frequency, by geography etc.) will yield maps and lists of results. This is part of the FCC’s transparency efforts.

Anne Neville of NTIA then spoke to the state of the broadband grants.

NTIA has announced 54 out of 56 grants for more than $100 million, 75%/25% mapping to planning. Everyone is funded for two years of data collection, verification and display.

She addressed some issues raised in recent days: The display part will be done in connection with the FCC and will be part of your grant. We need to spend time sharing information about how to drive users to the state crowdsourcing website. There’s a lot of flexibility (uncommon in grants) because we didn’t have a lot of time to put together the plan. National Map due Feb 2011, but funds need to be allocated by Sept 2010 (to the state, not the contractor) - which is not ideal. Defining “middle mile” is different between carriers, but we need that data as best we can get it. (Here’s a definition of middle mile: “Middle Mile Projects - an area composed of one or more contiguous census blocks where one interconnection point terminates in a census block area(s) that qualifies as unserved or underserved for Last Mile projects.”

She then tackled a list created by NSGIC yesterday, plus questions from the floor. Mike Byrne chimed in on occasion, too. (note: these are paraphrased)

Q: Can we make clear that there are multiple speed tests (with different results) on state/fed sites?
A: We need to message that better.

Q: WIll you show points on the map (actual addresses)?

A: No, not at FCC. Crowdsourcing a great opportunity, but we don’t know how do stats on that data, and that’s ok.

Q: What is a delegate?
A: One entity per state was to be entity for grant. NIST has one contact for the grant.

Q: How can we help you define “best practices.”
A: Wiki coming and perhaps working groups.

Q: How’s the NSGIC data model?
A: OK, but we have a few suggestions on a few minor contradictions. We want to fix these and push out version 1.1.

Q: How will we know when an NTIA product is done?
A: If your state doesn’t bother to do its work (make the map), we’ll need to have a chat. Some will be great. Some will be in the middle. Most important to know if there’s a problem as early as possible. We think we can get “good” data in this first round; we want to push for that.

Q: Middle mile data?
A: Get what you can.

Q: Is NTIA going to do anything to educate Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP)? Integrate efforts?
A: Maybe we can get them info on the designated organization doing mapping.

Q: Plans for long term maintenance of this data?
A: Still a conversation about this…the decision needs to be made soon.

#NSGICMidyear: Mon Morning Open Mike Session

The last session of the morning was an open “question” period. The Q&As are paraphrased.

Q: What is StateStat usage by public?
A: We don’t have a way to track pages created by ArcGIS Server. There is a the ability to e-mail the gov with a question and those show up, and we know from where you sent the question. They know they are not reaching the segment of the public they’d like to. [!]

Q: What’s this about using Virtual USA for Broadband?
A: CTO wanted a visualization for delivery of grants or for exploring challenges to grant dissemination. And that way, two agencies won’t try to fund same thing.

Q: What about the budget cuts for USGS Liasons since need them to work on EFTN?
A: That’s another example of why they are important. We need to figure this out…

Q: Virtual USA seems to be a new way to interact with states after viewers and other DHS efforts (which yielded mixed success). Is it a shift is strategy?
A: There are lots of components that deal with geospatial sharing within GIS. We are not a program office, but a research office. Cy Smith on the “tea leaves”: Very highly placed org is working on this and the way they approached us leads us to believe this is probably going to be a centerpiece, if it works. Bill Burgess: This is an opportunity; NSGIC should provide feedback.

Q: We need consequence management in Virtual USA.
A: Could be in there, if its in the requirements. There’s some in VIPER.