National Academies Press: OpenBook

National Spatial Data Infrastructure Partnership Programs: Rethinking the Focus (2001)

Chapter: THE FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE NSDI

« Previous: PRIMING THE PUMP-THE FEDERAL ROLE IN NSDI PARTNERSHIP INITIATION
Suggested Citation:"THE FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE NSDI." National Research Council. 2001. National Spatial Data Infrastructure Partnership Programs: Rethinking the Focus. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10241.
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Page 35
Suggested Citation:"THE FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE NSDI." National Research Council. 2001. National Spatial Data Infrastructure Partnership Programs: Rethinking the Focus. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10241.
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Page 36
Suggested Citation:"THE FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE NSDI." National Research Council. 2001. National Spatial Data Infrastructure Partnership Programs: Rethinking the Focus. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10241.
×
Page 37
Suggested Citation:"THE FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE NSDI." National Research Council. 2001. National Spatial Data Infrastructure Partnership Programs: Rethinking the Focus. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10241.
×
Page 38

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REVIEW OF NSDI PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMS 35 stage and never provide the benefits that were originally hypothesized. As noted in Chapter 1, the committee’s purpose in initiating this assessment was to determine whether programs conducted to date have assisted in meeting the four main goals of the NSDI. As dominant sponsors of a first stage of adoption, the federal government has successfully “primed the NSDI pump.” This priming action appears to have been primarily directed at the one specific goal of improved access to data, and the evidence the committee gathered clearly demonstrates that the NSDI does indeed improve access to data. The actions of the federal sponsors of the NSDI, in creating the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse (NGDC) and fostering the use of the Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) through partnership programs, have led to a substantial improvement in nationwide access to geospatial data. Furthermore, we anticipate that a second stage of adoption will follow; namely, where many more agencies and organizations can be expected to participate in the NGDC and adopt the metadata standard, without requiring further direct pump-priming and encouragement by the federal government. It should also be noted that the FGDC and UCGIS funded the Spatial Data and Visualization Center at the University of Wyoming to develop educational materials on metadata; see http://www.sdvc.uwyo.edu/ metadata.educational.html. THE FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE NSDI Full adoption of the NSDI will require attention to the remaining three goals: reduced redundancy, decreased cost, and increased accuracy. To date, the federal government’s funding incentives through the NSDI partnership programs do not appear to have had a significant effect on these goals. In many ways, these additional goals rely on a much more fundamental level of cooperation between partners than the simple sharing of an agency’s existing data. Because these goals are critical to the future evolution of the NSDI, the committee considers that continued evolution of the NSDI is in some jeopardy. Organizations that initially responded positively to the NSDI, attracted by the obvious benefits and financial

REVIEW OF NSDI PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMS 36 incentives, may grow bored or disenchanted and withdraw when the novelty wears off and the funding disappears. Others who were drawn by incentives provided by federal partnership programs may withdraw when it becomes clear that those incentives were not intended for the long term. The committee strongly suggests that, to assure the future of the NSDI, attention be directed at the remaining three goals. Specifically, future partnership programs sponsored by the federal government should be required to provide convincing evidence that adoption of the NSDI’s concepts and design results in reductions in redundancy and cost, and increased accuracy. These projects should serve as clear models of the benefits of partnerships and mechanisms for long-term sustainability. To be convincing, such demonstrations should satisfy certain criteria: Scale. Demonstrations should be large enough to provide unambiguous results, and sufficient resources should be provided to ensure that there is sufficient time for the project to be completed. Visibility. Demonstrations should be widely visible to the geospatial data community, and sufficient resources should be provided to ensure that results are widely disseminated. This can be in the form of virtual town hall meetings and “cookbooks” that demonstrate clear success stories that should be widely distributed at professional meetings attended by local government officials and workers. Rigor. Demonstrations should be designed according to appropriate scientific principles, with solid experimental designs that will ensure that the findings can be extended to other areas. This should include efforts to better understand the impediments to successful adoption of the goals of the NSDI. It will also be important that future funding initiatives be widely advertised, with the criteria for selection clearly stated. Ideally, a panel of experts in the field should evaluate the proposals, with appropriate peer-review. Partnership is a very general concept that can serve many different ends, so it is particularly important that a program of part

REVIEW OF NSDI PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMS 37 nerships intended to support the construction of the NSDI be allowed to focus on that goal. The federal government has many other goals and objectives for its geospatial data activities besides the promotion of the NSDI. Geospatial data are used for many purposes, and their use supports many goals. As a result, there is some danger that programs designed to promote the NSDI may become convolved with other programs, be diverted to serve other needs, or expected to serve too many different purposes. At the same time, it must be recognized that many projects and programs depend on accurate and current spatial data and the cost of creating and maintaining the data is a legitimate cost item (OMB, 2000; see Box 3). BOX 3 NSDI AND THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET It must be recognized that the activities of the FGDC partnership programs were not designed to be a panacea for solving all problems associated with sharing spatial data. Successful models rely on a combination of organization and financial resources. Over the past two years, the Office of Management and Budget has taken a keen interest in NSDI issues. In July of 2000 it held a GeoSpatial Information Roundtable with the objective of identifying the financial and institutional barriers that impede development of the NSDI. This meeting was attended by 110 senior representatives from various sectors. This gathering recognized the importance of the NSDI to E-Government and E-Business, and highlighted FGDC’s role in its stewardship. While the OMB objectives in this sphere parallel those of the FGDC, a report Collecting Information in the Information Age (OMB, 2000) argued for a new paradigm that would build the NSDI from the “bottom up”. The report recognizes the importance of scale, and notes that “State, local and tribal entities will build much of the NSDI… The challenge for the Federal government is to leverage this investment, coordinate efforts, and help state and local governments and the private sector make the data available regionally and nationally” (OMB 2000). The OMB report also recognized that “By itself, FGDC’s resources are insufficient to steward the building of ‘natural clusters’ of partners.” The participants in the roundtable developed a set of recommendations that emphasized many of the same issues that

REVIEW OF NSDI PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMS 38 the MSC has addressed in several of its reports. For example, it also advocates the development of an extended framework. The OMB initiative established a model for Implementation Teams (I- Teams). These teams develop comprehensive plans, conduct needs assessments, and formulate implementation strategies. Although this approach was only publicized in the summer of 2000, within a year I- Teams had been established for Arizona, Arkansas, Nebraska, Delaware, Kentucky, Wayne County Michigan, New Jersey, New Jersey and New York Metro Region, New York City, Texas, Utah, North Carolina. Montana, and Oregon. Some of these initiatives are already quite extensive. For example, the Utah Framework Implementation Plan is a comprehensive assessment of statewide needs and a blueprint for creating the NSDI within the state. It is very clear that the OMB initiative is providing a valuable umbrella for coordination. According to the Utah plan, “The OMB Information Initiative to align the needs and resources to continue to develop the National Spatial Data Infrastructure provides public and private agencies in Utah an opportunity to focus on mutually beneficial partnerships. The results of these efforts will help to provide integrated information for analysis of issues and decision-making at federal, state, local, and Tribal levels of government. Further it will provide a common frame of reference for communicating information and concepts of complex issues to citizens….” The OMB initiative also called for the establishment of a ‘financing solutions team’ that would examine ways to reconcile the need for long term capital financing and the reliance on short-term annual funding mechanisms. As a consequence of this suggestion, the FGDC sponsored a report, Financing the NSDI: National Spatial Data Infrastructure— Aligning Federal and Non-Federal Investments in Spatial Data, Decision Support and Information Resources. Revision 2.0 of this report is now available for public comment.

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The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) was envisioned as a way of enhancing the accessibility, communication, and use of geospatial data to support a wide variety of decisions at all levels of society. The goals of the NSDI are to reduce redundancy in geospatial data creation and maintenance, reduce the costs of geospatial data creation and maintenance, improve access to geospatial data, and improve the accuracy of geospatial data used by the broader community. At the core of the NSDI is the concept of partnerships, or collaborations, between different agencies, corporations, institutions, and levels of government. In a previous report, the Mapping Science Committee (MSC) defined a partnership as "...a joint activity of federal and state agencies, involving one or more agencies as joint principals focusing on geographic information." The concept of partnerships was built on the foundation of shared responsibilities, shared costs, shared benefits, and shared control. Partnerships are designed to share the costs of creation and maintenance of geospatial data, seeking to avoid unnecessary duplication, and to make it possible for data collected by one agency at a high level of spatial detail to be used by another agency in more generalized form.

Over the past seven years, a series of funding programs administered by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) has stimulated the creation of such partnerships, and thereby promoted the objectives of the NSDI, by raising awareness of the need for a coordinated national approach to geospatial data creation, maintenance, and use. They include the NSDI Cooperative Agreements Program, the Framework Demonstration Projects Program, the Community Demonstration Projects, and the Community-Federal Information Partnerships proposal. This report assesses the success of the FGDC partnership programs that have been established between the federal government and state and local government, industry, and academic communities in promoting the objectives of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.

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