The information need Jurisdictional
Boundaries was defined as one of the original
thirteen priority common information
needs of the MetroGIS community.
Click here to view the
Jurisdictional Boundaries Business Object Framing Model Fragment.
A Jurisdictional Boundaries Peer Review Forum
was held on June 2, 1997. The group concluded that "jurisdictional boundaries"
means the boundaries of local government entities that possess taxing
authority: cities, counties, school and watershed districts. The participants
also identified generalized desired data specifications for each of these
entities. Refer to the Forum summary (Turnaround
Document) for more information about the participants, process and
conclusions.
Subsequently, Washington County agreed, as one
of its projects funded through its
GIS Data and Cost Sharing
Agreement, to: a) refine the general data specifications through a pilot
project; b) identify roles and responsibilities necessary to build and maintain
the primary source data and to assemble the primary source data into regional
datasets, and c) identify organizations with the business need and appropriate
expertise to serve as the primary producers and regional custodians.
- County/MCD
Boundaries
- School District Boundaries (work in
progress)
- Status: on hold awaiting designation of a regional custodian.
- Prior effort: In November 2000,
Washington County completed a pilot study for
MetroGIS that recommended guidelines for counties' primary data capture of
school district boundaries, aggregation to a regional dataset, custodial roles
and responsibilities and candidate custodians. These recommendations were
accepted by the Policy Advisory Team (PAT) on February 14, 2001. The PAT
subsequently created a subcommittee to explore the recommendation that MetroGIS
rely upon the Minnesota Department of Education (DoE) to serve as the regional
custodian. The committee concluded that it should postpone contacting DoE until
a pending DoE-related project utilizing the services of Mn Management Land Information Center (LMIC) was well in hand.
The related project involved mapping school district attendance areas
throughout the state. A related project had materialized due to major funding cutbacks at LMIC. With enactment of Legislation in May 2009 to create the Mn Office of Geographic Information (MnGeo), negotiations will be suggested in pursuit of a regional solution.
- Watershed District Boundaries (work in
progress)
- Status: on hold awaiting designation of a regional custodian.
- Prior effort: In Spring 2006, Washington County completed a pilot study for MetroGIS that recommended guidelines for counties' primary data capture of watershed district boundaries, data specifications, aggregation into a regional dataset, custodial roles and responsibilities and candidate custodians. The report is entitled “Jurisdictional Boundary Update and Maintenance for Watershed Management Organizations Washington County”, dated Spring 2006.
On September 11, 2006, the recommendations for were presented to an official with the Mn Board of Soil and Water Resources (BWSR), the entity identified in the report as the most desirable to assume to the roles and responsibilities of a regional custodian. Although, the recommendations were found to be laudable, BWSR’s response was that the proposed responsibilities exceeded their business needs.
A central part of MetroGIS's work is to identify common information needs of GIS users in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area and facilitate the policy and data specifications needed to address each of these common information needs.
An investigation to understand these common needs was conducted by MetroGIS from September 1996 to March 1997. The result of this study was the identification of thirteen priority common information needs of the MetroGIS community. Since that time, a priority function of MetroGIS has been to facilitate the development and/or assembly of regional datasets needed to address each of these common information needs.
Each information need is addressed through a replicable process. In general, the process begins by assembling a team of content experts and through a facilitated group process (Peer Review Forum), the team begins with the business object framing model fragment to identify dataset(s) required to meet the information need. In some cases, this process takes place in a forum of content experts and in other cases it is not such a formalized process because the dataset(s) that meet the information need are intuitively recognized.
Once the dataset(s) required to meet an information need is identified, a working group of content experts is created to:
- Refine the desired specifications identified at the Peer Review Forum,
- Identify desired data standards and guidelines,
- Identify desired roles and responsibilities for the custodian organization(s) - organizations responsible for data creation, maintenance, documentation, and distribution; and,
- Identify candidate custodial organizations that have a business need and appropriate expertise to carry out the desired roles and responsibilities.
The process is complete when the Policy Board has adopted, as policy for the MetroGIS community, parameters defined through the stated tasks. The parameters are posted on a Web page for each “MetroGIS endorsed regional dataset”. Once an endorsed dataset is operational, MetroGIS monitors user satisfaction to continually enhance it.
To learn more, please see the About Information Needs page and the pages for each endorsed regional dataset.
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