Common Information Needs

Street Addresses

• Overview of MetroGIS's Street Addresses Information Need
• Dataset(s) that meet the Street Addresses Information Need
• Background on MetroGIS's "Information Needs" Concept

The information need Street Addresses was identified as one of thirteen original priority business information needs of the MetroGIS community. Click here to view the Business Object Framing Model Fragment for this information need. Click here for further information about MetroGIS's Business Information Needs initiative.

Work on this priority information need began with MetroGIS hosting an Address Information Needs Forum on December 11, 1997. The purpose of this forum was to obtain agreement of the MetroGIS community on data elements needed to address each of the information needs statements previously consolidated into the Addresses Business Object Framing Model fragment and to fill in gaps in the framing model where incomplete.

In addition to the purposes stated above, the participants concluded that: a) "addresses" must be dealt with as both ranges associated with street centerline data and as parcel attributes and b) this information need includes "addresses for people, places, and things". The forum participants, processes, and findings are documented in the Forum Turnaround Document.

Click on the datasets in the next section for a detailed explanation of the activities and policy actions involved in developing MetroGIS's regional street centerline and parcel data solutions, as well as the data specifications, custodial roles and assignments, and efforts to monitor user satisfaction with these solutions.

As solutions emerged for the regional street centerline and parcels datasets, workgroups concluded that MetroGIS's Where People Live Information Need should focus on "many addresses to single parcel relationship" issues. Solutions to these complex many-to-one relationships, in a manner consistent with the needs of the broad MetroGIS data user community, required significant additional work beyond that necessary to address the vast majority of other identified street address needs that are dealt with in the current versions of the regional street centerline and parcel datasets.

In fall 2003, an "address data" connection was recognized between several previously unrelated initiatives within and outside of MetroGIS. This realization led to proposing the formation of an Address Workgroup as a component of MetroGIS's 2004 workplan. The Workgroup's focus was to identify a collaborative solution to the many-to-one address relationships that could be supported by all interests. The component initiatives were:

1. Desired enhancements to the address components of the regional parcel dataset,
2. Desire to capture "business type" and related information for the regional existing land use solution,
3. Desire to analyze and map household and employment data at a higher resolution than can be supported with traditional census data (e.g., the iBlockTM methodology developed by Excensus LLC in conjunction with the North Metro I-35W Corridor Coalition),
4. The Ramsey County GIS User Group's efforts to develop a county-wide, enterprise address database, and
5. The Metropolitan 911 Board's desire for improved address data and its efforts to integrate GIS technology into the day-to-day activities of the 27 Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs).

In April 2005, the MetroGIS Policy Board endorsed a Vision Statement for a regional Occupiable Units data solution. See the Address Workgroup page for more information on the workgroup's purpose, membership, and meeting minutes.

Also see http://www.metrogis.org/data/info_needs/where_people_live/index.shtml for information.

• Parcels
• Addressable Street Centerlines

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:

1. Refine the desired specifications identified at the Peer Review Forum,
2. Identify desired data standards and guidelines,
3. Identify desired roles and responsibilities for the custodian organization(s) - organizations responsible for data creation, maintenance, documentation, and distribution; and,
4. 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.