Leadership Guide for Strategic Information Management for State Departments of Transportation (2016) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 10-20
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From page 10... ...
10 DOTs in the Information Age: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks Information Is a Strategic Asset DOT executives are accountable for delivering safe, efficient, integrated, and sustainable transportation services that enhance the economic and social well-being of citizens. To carry out this mission, DOTs need to maximize use of all available assets, including infrastructure, funding, people, and information.
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From page 11... ...
DOTs in the Information Age: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks 11 • Decisions about collecting data or improving information access are often made within individual divisions, offices, and bureaus rather than being based on a coordinated agency-wide strategy. • Functions related to information management are dispersed throughout the agency and not coordinated, including records management, engineering document management, data management, library management, intranet and public-facing website(s)
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From page 12... ...
12 Leadership Guide for Strategic Information Management for State Departments of Transportation This study identified several compelling examples of how transportation decision-makers were able to leverage available information for improved decisions and outcomes: • In Massachusetts, current and projected bridge condition data were successfully used to make the case to the state legislature for additional funding for bridges and to develop a program that balanced the replacement or rehabilitation of existing structurally deficient bridges with other preservation projects aimed at preventing additional bridges from deteriorating to a deficient condition. • In Oklahoma, following a bridge collapse on I-40 resulting from a barge hit, commodity flow data were used to develop a plan to divert trucks to alternate corridors while the bridge was being rebuilt in order to minimize disruption of freight movement and associated economic impacts.
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From page 13... ...
DOTs in the Information Age: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks 13 Need for Improved Information Management It is a fallacy to think that once data and content are acquired, the work of producing actionable information is accomplished. In fact, when a need for information arises, many agencies have difficulty responding in an efficient manner due to a lack of proactive information management practices.
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From page 14... ...
14 Leadership Guide for Strategic Information Management for State Departments of Transportation DOTs are also experiencing an explosion in digital data. Cameras, global positioning system (GPS)
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DOTs in the Information Age: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks 15 to information produced by individual business units. DOTs are also implementing electronic collaboration tools and content management systems to manage and share their growing collections of digital documents and rich media files.
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16 Leadership Guide for Strategic Information Management for State Departments of Transportation only within an individual employee's brain. With employee turnover, there is a high risk that this knowledge will be lost.
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From page 17... ...
DOTs in the Information Age: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks 17 information science is invaluable for designing and implementing effective digital information management and retrieval methods. The challenge is to leverage and integrate these skills for a broader agency-wide information management function.
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From page 18... ...
18 Leadership Guide for Strategic Information Management for State Departments of Transportation When business units independently develop concepts for new information initiatives without consulting with information specialists, this can result in sub-optimal solutions that don't consider agency-wide needs or opportunities. Separate budget development processes within different units with information management responsibilities (e.g., library management, web site management, records management, etc.)
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From page 19... ...
DOTs in the Information Age: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks 19 agement responsibilities without requisite knowledge or training in information architecture, library science, or data science. This situation directly impacts the ability of both information professionals and users of information resources to adopt new, improved information management practices and adjust to a rapidly changing environment.
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From page 20... ...
20 Leadership Guide for Strategic Information Management for State Departments of Transportation • They have serious data integrity issues due to a lack of edit and audit capabilities; • Technical staff members who were responsible for system updates and maintenance have retired or moved on, and newer technical staff members are not trained to work with older technologies. The bottom line is that legacy systems are more difficult to maintain and less flexible than their modern counterparts.
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