Cambridge, UK, 20th December 2005. The Laser-Scan and Oracle eGoverment Roadshow is now complete*. Delegates attended seminars that addressed spatial data migration and adoption issues associated with new base reference mapping, such as OS MasterMap®.
The seminars were supported enthusiastically by Ordnance Survey consultants and Laser-Scan partners. Below are the findings of a survey completed by all Roadshow attendees, which show the key issues faced by local government organisations.
A range of professionals working with geospatial data, including Data Custodians, Project Managers and ICT Directors, attended the Roadshow. Their main spatial data concerns, rated in order of importance, are:
1. Spatial data quality
2. Land and Property Gazetteers
3. Street Gazetteers
4. Physical migration of datasets
5. Data storage requirements.
Irrespective of issues voiced over measuring and quantifying spatial data quality, it was consistently ranked as the biggest challenge for the attendees. Despite the range of GIS applications put in place to manage geospatial data, poor data quality is still evident. It was recognised that if the data supplied to organizations and internally produced data was of poor quality, then the organization and even individual’s reputation was at stake.
Not surprisingly two of the most important issues were the Land and Property and Street Gazetteers. The interest here moved from ‘front-end’ applications to looking at ‘back-end’ processing. Attendees wanted to understand more about the advantages of OS MasterMap and new tools available to help assess and improve both the quality of the gazetteers and how they are managed in the future.
OS MasterMap migration was ranked fourth in the list of issues. Many attendees understood that they may have ‘migrated’ to this new dataset, but actually ‘adopting’ it and making full, effective use of it was something that still had to be addressed. There was a marked contrast in the way some attendees described their use of OS MasterMap to help automate and streamline business processes that were previously taking up extensive resources.
The final point on the list of issues was centralised data storage. People understood the advantages of centralised data management and the issues associated with presenting the business case. The return on the investment of moving to a centralized system cannot really be fully realized until the event has taken place. Many of the attendees were aware of the significant investment they had already made in ICT systems, so justifying further spending is challenging. However, there was an overwhelming unanimity in the number of organisations that had already invested in Oracle, but who were not taking advantage of spatial functionality that comes for free in the standard edition.
Tony Black, Operations Director, Intelligent Addressing commented:
“I’m intrigued and encouraged by the concerns registered by the attendees and personally I agree that data quality is a key aspect. However, in order to address the issue and achieve the highest levels of quality required by end users, it is necessary to revisit the processes to supply the information. This is exactly why the NLPG and NSG are key initiatives. They should finally ensure the transition from the ad hoc approaches of map based solutions to the rigorous environment of information management.”
* Seminars were held at Oracle offices in Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Reading and London.
For further information relating to use of spatial data to meet eGovernment targets contact: info@laser-scan.com
For further information relating to NLPG and NSG read the NLPG E-zine for December 2005:
http://www.nlpg.org.uk/ezine/December2005e-zine.htm