[talk-au] Geoscience Australia Administrative Boundary data

Brent Easton b.easton at exemail.com.au
Tue Sep 18 13:08:32 BST 2007


I have downloaded and had a look at the free National Public and Aboriginal Lands data available from Geoscience Australia and am interested whether we want/can use it. It covers state/territory boundaries, National Parks, Nature Reserves, State Forests, Defence land etc > 40 hectares.

Is this something we can/want to use? 

Thoughts appreciated before running it past the OS crowd.

My feeling is that it sounds like it might be feasible if the attribution issue can be solved, but I do not pretend to understand the licensing issues.


Regards,
Brent.


Issues:

 1. Currency. It is current up to 1998. Still useful for State boundaries and most national parks etc.

 2. Datum. If is recorded using AGD66 and will nee to be converted to GDA94.

 3. Accuracy. It is digitized from 1:250,000 paper maps and so is not terribly accurate, but again, is probably fine for the sort of information contained.

 4. Licensing. Though the data is free, it is copyright and licensed to a specific end user. The license allows the user to 'use, reproduce, adapt, modify, commercially exploit and communicate the Data (including by development and distribution of a Derivative Product)' which basically means you can do anything with it, as long as it contains correct attribution (see http://www.osdm.gov.au/osdm/docs/internet_licence.htm),

 5. Attribution. The license requires a fairly extensive copright notice to be 'displayed with, attached to or embodied in (in a reasonably prominent manner) any Data or Derivative Product provided to an End-user:

This product (insert Derivative Product name) incorporates Data which is
© Commonwealth of Australia [insert year in which the Data was published].

The Data has been used in (insert Derivative Product name) with the permission of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has not evaluated the Data as altered and incorporated within (insert Derivative Product name), and therefore gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose.



Is this something we can use? 


____________________________________________________________
Brent Easton                       
Analyst/Programmer                               
University of Western Sydney                                   
Email: b.easton at uws.edu.au





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