This is a project intended for government and community services application. It addresses institutional challenges posed by information technology and the Internet. We will specifically address the issues surrounding community based access to and use of geographic information systems (GIS), economic and demographic data for the purpose of making informed community based decisions. It is the thesis of this proposal that the full use of information infrastructure requires certain changes to the way institutions are organized. This project will explore how institutions involved in the various aspects of community planning must change in order for the general public to fully profit from the promise that infrastructure has to involve the local communities in this decision making and problem solving process.

1. PROJECT PURPOSE

Background: The Southwestern Colorado Data Center has successfully shown that small regional Data Centers serve to involve end-users in the local landuse decision making process. We have shown how these Data Centers can be established and how they can function through a prior TIIAP project, Maps for People! that was successful because its objective focused on the end-user. The Maps for People! project demonstrated:

• end-users want and can use GIS data.

• public institutions can work together to provide GIS to the people.

• a regional data center can serve to integrate and disseminate GIS, economic and demographic data to a limited geographic area.

• the ability to develop a metadata database with content from over 10 institutions.

• the ability to break the political log-jam that has complicated the distribution of GIS data by creating a demand-pull situation instead of relying on supply-push.

• sharing resources across political boundaries making the regional data centers affordable in rural settings.

• a practical and understandable application utilizing the Internet and telecommunications infrastructure; governments, educational institutions, business communities and the rural health organizations are now developing other applications and further developing their information infrastructure.

• TCP/IP protocol and the Internet are efficient means of distributing the data.

1. Specific problems

Our prior project purposely set aside institutional issues. We now believe that the key to making these Data Centers sustainable, in the absence of an outside funding source such as the NTIA, lies in understanding traditional institutional practices and analyzing the fundamental changes that are needed to encourage true public access and involvement.

Rural areas throughout North America are struggling to understand many environmental, landuse and economic questions. The relationship between these issues is difficult to understand and, with the recent increase in growth rates, compelling. The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) has created at the Federal level the leadership to make data available. Many states are now joining in this effort and are creating state level clearinghouses for GIS data. The problem is, in most states the decisions concerning environmental and landuse policy are made at the local level. The fact that many institutions now have, or will have in the future, FGDC compliant metadata clearinghouses does not mean that local communities have access to or the means to utilize this data. There are many reasons for this.

• Many rural areas do not have the financial resources to deal with this data.

• There continue to be issues of cost recovery discussed at the data provider level.

• There is an underlying attitude of "a little bit of knowledge in the wrong hands can be a dangerous thing." This is a fear that people will use the data in an inappropriate fashion.

• There is an ongoing tension between ‘open records’ laws and ‘right to privacy’ laws.

• End-users do not have the resources needed to create the data each time it is needed nor can they afford to store it between times of need.

These and other issues often create inadvertent institutional barriers to public access to this data. The exploding use of the Internet is redefining the way traditional institutions do business, which can help remove these barriers.

2. Solution

The strategy we would follow to achieve our goals would be to replicate and expand our existing model. We will replicate the regional Data Center model in a broad, multi-state context to arrive at solutions that are applicable to rural areas throughout North America. The multi-state context will include Colorado, New Mexico and Utah government institutions, non-profits and the general public throughout the Four-Corners region of the Colorado Plateau. One new Data Center will be established in New Mexico and one in Utah. We will also expand the Southwestern Colorado Data Center to demonstrate the scalability of our concept. The three centers represent different organizational models and economic communities. We will access each states’ existing databases through the national metadata standard.

This is an ideal area for a project of this type because:

• The areas included in each of the states represent the most remote area in the telecommunications system of each state.

• The region has a wide variety of economies including agricultural, traditional extractive industries, tourism and retirement.

• The region contains several sovereign Indian nations.

• By keeping this project within this area it is still possible to efficiently analyze the project without getting too spread out.

• By working with one established regional center and two new centers we will be able to analyze both start-up and scalability challenges.

• The large expanses of public lands in the region create cross-institutional communication opportunities.

The process of applying this data to environmental and economic issues as they impact rural areas requires a common information framework. This framework includes content, the means of accessing the content, and the expertise in using that content. Content must have adequate breadth and detail to be useful for a wide range of applications. All parties need access to an information infrastructure and all parties must share or exchange data from which they conduct their analyses, so that they may be confident that their analyses include the concerns and parameters of other parties.

The two new regional Data Centers will work with the existing Southwestern Colorado Data Center to:

1. Make available on the open Internet infrastructure geographically-referenced data from federal, state and local sources.
2. Apply these data to education and decision-making at the local level.
3. Provide direct assistance and training in its application and use.
4. Promote and support the development and continuation of geographically-referenced data consistent with the uniform sets of standards supported by each participating state and the Spatial Data Transfer Standard.

The strategies will further the investigation of the use of telecommunications and information infrastructure which will require attention to the issues involved in its application to the use of GIS. The replication of this GIS Information Network will promote citizen and government ties, improve efficiency of government, promote public safety and promote economic development in rural areas of North America. We believe the ability to access, manipulate, analyze and view data pertaining to landuse and natural resource management, locally, will provide powerful motivation to officials, businesses, citizens and students to model and formulate positions on issues impacting the balance of natural resource preservation and economic growth and development. We further believe that common data and analyses concerning these issues can help reduce the significant social conflict that often lies at the intersection of these two realms.

This applications area—wholly enabled by and dependent on the NII—lays the foundation for a more informed citizenry and improved governmental decision-making at all levels. We will analyze these issues with the goal of identifying creative new partnerships that will result in more effective local decision making. These issues are pervasive throughout the national GIS community, not just in this region. It is critical to the long term environmental and economic well being of rural communities throughout North America that these partnerships be created and made sustainable. Population growth and recreational use throughout the Colorado Plateau have created previously unknown pressures on the environment and the local economies. The Federal stewards of land in this area of the country need the locally generated data on population, its environment, and economic data to more effectively administer their lands.

The project will provide server based software for simple viewing of the data. This is an emerging technology, i.e. ESRI’s Map Objects. Our experience to date shows that this can be used to make data and images available at modem speeds of access. (33.3 kbps). With the use of this technology the end-user can run simple queries through their Internet browser with no additional software. We believe this is the solution for involving the ‘man in the street’ in the decision making process. We will also provide training in the use of this software.

3. Outcomes

We feel the institutional changes that are required to achieve broad-based community involvement in the decision making process will be incremental over the period of this grant. The realistic measurable outcomes are as follows:

1. Establish a baseline for national discussion.

• Define the issues for discussion. These baselines would be established early in the process and be determined through surveys and discussion.

1. Facilitate the discussion and distribute the results.

• We would work with national magazines, professional organizations and web sites to engage the national GIS community in these discussions. In this manner we could establish some generalizations that would apply nationwide.

1. Document incremental institutional change such as:

• mission statement changes that demonstrate accountability to the general public and local community,

• memos of understanding between institutions,
• press releases,
• institutional staff memos,
• confidence levels in sharing data between agencies and the public
• changes in service provision policies.

1. Publish a handbook of analysis and examples at the end of the project.

The above outcomes would serve to demonstrate what mechanisms for cooperation worked in individual situations. By engaging in the national discussion we will show how other areas of the country are responding to the challenges and show general similarities.

3. Innovation and Modeling Ability

This work would examine various innovative partnership agreements and draw from them general principles useful in implementing institutional change nationwide. It would also provide the background information to any area of the country that would like to establish a cooperative community-based information sharing and dissemination system for mapping, landuse and demographic data.

1. PROJECT FEASIBILITY

1. Interoperability

The Internet, through our previous work, has been demonstrated as an effective way to transfer the data to most end-users. The three states we will be working with each have different methods of implementing the federal standard for metadata. The many communities we will be working with have a variety of software packages. We will develop mechanisms that allow the usable distribution of data throughout this maze. The federal standard deals with the descriptions of data, not the implementation of a useable form for the end-user. In our prior project, the regional Southwestern Colorado Data Center served the function of packaging this data into a common format that all end-users could utilize.

2. Scalability

The Southwestern Colorado Data Center has been serving the needs of two counties and an increasing number of end-users within this area. As part of this project we will expand the service area to five counties and also regionally into the Four-Corners area and demonstrate the scalability aspects of our model.

3. Technical Alternatives

We believe the existing Internet infrastructure within the various regions is capable of supporting the applications proposed. It may be determined, in part as a result of this project, that creative additional infrastructure may be needed for long term sustainability. This project will map the existing infrastructure, which will provide the basis for analysis of this problem.

GIS, based, for example, on ESRI ArcInfo, uses TCP/IP as the data exchange protocol and is a good fit with the Internet. The regional centers will package the data in appropriate subsets so that the end-user does not need a high bandwidth connection to acquire the data. Data query requests will return only the information needed thereby reducing the need for bandwidth. This form of distribution will work for the entities working with stand-alone local-based software.

The regional data centers will each have their own independent server. This shared community resource allows many groups to have access to a root level of the information infrastructure while sharing the cost. This allows various government entities a place to serve their data without worrying about public access to their internal LAN’s. The Data Center’s servers also provide an ‘incubation’ location for any community group or school to start a web presence or discussion group.

• Applicant Qualifications:

• Applicant. The Southwestern Colorado Data Center, (SCDC) was established in 1994 as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. SCDC was started with funding from organizations in Ouray County, Colorado including several environmental groups, towns, county government, school districts, ranchers, miners, private citizens and businesses. Our goal has always been to collect and provide public access to data concerning the environmental, demographic and economic aspects of the region
• Experience: This project leverages SCDC’s experience in working with rural communities to analyze the complexities of sharing data across jurisdictional boundaries and making this data available to everyone in the community. Sample projects completed include:
• Lead Data Center in Maps for People! project

• Demographic and Economic Trend-Line Report, Ouray County.
• Skyway Trails Master Plan, a master plan for a seventy-mile trail through San Miguel and Ouray Counties.
• Provided mapping and training for the San Miguel River Coalition, a multi-objective watershed planning group.
• Taught high school classes in use of the Internet and GIS.
• Developed a region wide clearing house for GIS data.

• Conducted wildlife and natural resource analysis for several land trusts. This work has resulted in over 10,000 acres of land to be placed in conservation easements.

• Project Manager: Bill Ferguson is the administrator and founder of the Southwestern Colorado Data Center. He played a leadership role in creating the regional Data Center model. He has been involved as a coordinator in regional planning issues and coalition building for over fifteen years. Bill has fifteen years experience using computer CAD and GIS systems to analyze and present data involving landuse planning.

• Data base coordinator: Rick Fawcett has over seventeen years experience in the configuration, operation, and management of technology. This experience has included the development of complex systems, the evaluation, purchase and management of computers ranging from microcomputers to mainframes, and the management of computer departments with over fifty technical personnel. During the last three years, Mr. Fawcett has setup and managed World Wide Web, WAIS, FTP, and database servers for a variety of organizations. The database servers were some of the first to offer World Wide Web access to database applications. This last year Mr. Fawcett developed a GIS Metadata database that is used by four Colorado counties to identify and download GIS coverages to assist in landuse planning. These database and GIS coverages are accessed from the Internet using web browsers. Currently, Mr. Fawcett is managing a team of programmers developing direct Internet access to GIS using beta software. This system, when completed, will make finding GIS coverages more user friendly. It is also anticipated to make GIS more useful for the casual user.

• Partnership Facilitator: Richard Civille, Executive Director of the Center for Civic Networking

• Budget and Implementation Schedule:

The budget for this project will be $800,000, of which 50 percent is made up of in-kind and actual contributions from the participating entities.

The proposed time span of the project will be two years. The first six months will be spent establishing the base-line information and setting up the new regional centers. The next one and one half years will be spent developing applications at the local level while analyzing the partnerships and how they are changing over time.

2. Community Involvement

There has been an ongoing discussion for several years concerning how the Four Corners area of the Colorado Plateau could work together. There are currently groups in each state that discuss regional issues. These include the Regions 9 and 10 of the Colorado Division of Local Government, the northwestern New Mexico Council of Governments and the Canyon Country Partnership of Utah. We have concluded that the area is a diverse collection of ethnic, environmental and demographic situations. The main factors that tie the region together are that it has a very low population density and that the areas within each state are ‘forgotten’ by the individual state governments. There is common agreement that we need to forge a creative partnership to implement the use of telecommunications. The use of telecommunications offers a viable method of communication across our vast landscapes. Each of these organizations have met with the communities within their regions to explain who all the partners are and develop work plans for this project that are relevant to our goals. Following is a list of partners and contributing agencies.

 

Federal Level:

U.S. Bureau of Land Management

U.S.G.S. Biological Resources Division

U.S. Forest Service

National Park Service

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

 

State of Colorado:

Department of Natural Resources

Geographic Information Coordinating Committee

Department of Local Affairs

Department of Public Health and Environment

Colorado Advanced Technology Institute

Colorado Division of Local Gov.

 

State of Utah:

Automated Geographic Reference Center

Canyon Country Partnership

Colorado Plateau Forum

College of Eastern Utah

Grand County

Carbon County

San Juan County

 

State of New Mexico:

Northwestern New Mexico COG

McKinnely County

Local Government Division of the State of New Mexico

Earth Data Analysis Center

 

Private Sector:

Urban & Regional Information Systems Association. (URISA)

Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI)

(see appendix * for detailed task descriptions for each major partner)

 

3. Reducing Disparities

This project will reduce the disparity between rural and urban/suburban areas in access to geographically-referenced data. We will also address disparity through our focus on a broad user population supported through multiple training and access venues (libraries, schools, colleges and regional centers). The state boundaries and the phone company’s LATA (Local Access and Transport Areas) boundaries compound the current disparity in use of the Internet by communities in this region. This makes the entire region a ‘last mile’ zone. The applications that will be developed through this grant may provide the rationale for developing alternative information infrastructures within this area.

 

4. Evaluation and Dissemination

• Evaluation criteria. In evaluating the outcomes of this project we will assess the following quantitative measures:

What examples of institutional change have occurred? The examples listed in 1.3.3. in the outcomes section can be measured. We would document the incremental changes that could lead to some of these outcomes also. These changes would be examples such as: Does the assessor now have the confidence to share their parcel data with the Emergency Medical Services in their county? These small changes are the important factors that lead to concrete outcomes.

• Qualifications of the evaluation team:

The evaluation team consists of Bill Ferguson, Richard Civille and Alan Klein. This team has extensive experience in coordinating and facilitating discussions both in the Four Corners region and the nation as a whole. All members of this team have experience in regional and national forums, WWW forums and publishing information in old-fashioned hard copy form. This team will not be recommending changes to any system, but rather documenting the advantages and disadvantages of different partnerships, sharing arrangements and problems we have observed.

• Plans for dissemination of project activities: Our principal vehicle of information dissemination will be the WWW, documenting the projects ongoing evolution and products (the regional model, the new partnerships, the decision-making scenarios and how they are supported, technical detail on appropriate technology, etc) on-line as HTML documentation. We will also work with the Urban & Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) to present semi-annual reports and facilitate discussion sessions at national meetings of information distribution professionals. These reports will be included in URISA’s publications. We will participate in moderated discussions of this project at national conferences. The moderators will be picked from a random pool of nationally qualified people experienced in the field of information technologies. These discussions will be centered around this project and what can be learned from this at the national level. We will prepare a handbook at the conclusion of the grant period that will summarize what we have learned. It will include lists of contacts, data sources and tools. The handbook will also generalize the findings of the institutional changes we have discovered that must be accomplished.