Oh Myyy !

1. Social, Political, and Financial Issues of Connecting Geodatain and between Governmental Agencies Oh Myyy! Dr. Robert S. ChenDirector and Senior Research ScientistCIESIN, The Earth Institute

2. Which Governmental Agencies? • The U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) has ~32 agency members • Agriculture, Commerce • DOD, US Army Corps • Education, Energy • Health & Human Services • Homeland Security • Housing & Urban Development • Interior, Justice, Labor • OMB, State, Transportation • Treasury, VA, EPA, FCC (non-voting) • GSA, Library of Congress • NASA*, NARA, NCPC*, NSF* • NRC, OPM*, SBA, Smithsonian* • Social Security, TVA, USAID • Federal • State • Local • Regional • Tribal • Other national, provincial, local governments • UN agencies • Other intergovernmental entities * Currently no representative listed!

3. (Aren’t some missing?) • NGA? • NRO? • CIA? http://xkcd.com/1358/

4. What Topics?

5. What Do We Need to Connect? • Old stuff & New Stuff • Little stuff & BIG STUFF • Simple stuff & cOmpLeXStUff • Static stuff & Dynamic Stuff • Current stuff & Uncertain Future Prediction and Scenario Stuff • Public stuff & Private stuff • Local stuff & CLOUD STUFF • My stuff & Everyone Else’s Stuff! http://xkcd.com/1360/

6. Integration – Small-Area Output Aggregate data for administrative districts with tabulated population data and environmental characteristics

7. Social Issues: Given the number of players, it is easy for standards and initiatives to proliferate http://xkcd.com/927/

8. Here are some of the players I know about…

9. (That doesn’t mean we should only have one solution!) http://xkcd.com/1179/

10. Political Issues: Open access isn’t consistently defined, accepted, or implemented • Example: Although the U.S. Federal government recognizes the “public domain” status of much Federal data, that status isn’t necessarily recognized in other jurisdictions or known to users • Mixing of public and private sources of data and support becoming more common, leading to uncertainties about IP rights • Difficult policy (and technical) issues related to privacy, confidentiality, security, indigenous rights, cultural heritage, ecological protection, long-term rights, etc.

11. But there is progress… https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-data-charter/g8-open-data-charter-and-technical-annex http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2013/m-13-13.pdf http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/dsp/201310_full_and_open_principle_interpretation_living_paper.pdf

12. Financial Issues: All of us, even agencies, need recognition • Being unknown doesn’t cut it when competing for funding, promotion, long-term support, etc.

13. NASA invests heavily in both access and use metrics • User statistics • American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

14. SEDAC is working to assess the value of integrating social science and remote sensing data • Fall AGU paper analyzed 49 papers from 2012 citing both SEDAC and remote sensing data • More than half of the papers (26) reported simultaneous use of SEDAC and RS data in a trend/spatial analysis or a statistical or simulation model • Four papers used SEDAC data mainly for research translation (RT)

15. The U.S. National Climate Assessment provides a problem-focused interagency framework for linking geodata • The NCADAC recommends that the U.S. Global Change Research Program develop and implement a system of indicators to provide decision-relevant information on physical, natural, and social climate changes, impacts, vulnerabilities, and preparedness and to contribute to a sustained assessment process. NCADAC adopts the proposal developed by the Indicator Work Group, which includes recommendations for the implementation of a pilot set of indicators as the first steptowards a sustained indicator system. Figure 1. Conceptual Model for the National Climate Indicator System.

16. But perhaps we still need some new strategies! Thanks for your attention!