[Talk-ca] GeoBase and OpenStreetMap

[Mepham, Michael]

Before I get on with my comments let me introduce myself to the group.
My name is Mike Mepham and I am a member of the GeoBase Steering
Committee.  In fact, I was in on the founding of GeoBase in 2000/2001
and have been active with it ever since.  I have 19+ years with
Saskatchewan's geomatics agencies and am currently on secondment to the
federal government tasked with helping to continue and enhance the
cooperative geomatics programs between the 14 governments in Canada
(federal, 10 provincial, and 3 territorial).  A couple of things I am
not - I am not an employee of the Government of Canada although they
provide me with my work facilities.  I am still employed by one of the
provincial governments.  Also I am not the technical go to guy.  

I have two objectives with this note - The first is to clarify exactly
what GeoBase is and is not.  Hopefully I can help clear up some of the
confusion I have noticed in some in the postings to this discussion
group.  The second is to enter into a discussion about what this group
is trying to do, why, and how we can work together or at least not get
in each others way.  

What is GeoBase?

GeoBase is a collaborative partnership of the federal, provincial, and
territorial governments working to wards a vision of "Fundamental
geographic data of choice for Canada - collected once, maintained and
available without restrictions".  The idea is to ensure that any data
collection only takes place once and the results shared.  Also, every
effort is made to ensure that the agency responsible for the content of
the mapping is the agency that is "closest" to the items being mapped.
For example, many of the municipal roads in GeoBase are mapped by the
municipality itself who provide the data to the province who add it to
the provincial roads mapped by their department of transportation and
then the whole is submitted to GeoBase for inclusion in the portal.

So please do not refer to GeoBase data as federal data.  While some of
it is federally sourced most of it is municipally, territorially, or
provincially sourced and made available through the collaborative
partnership. 

There are several attributes (not data base attributes) that the data
must have to be included in GeoBase.  These include that it is expected
to be authoritative, maintained, freely available, etc.  For full
details on this and more on how the partnership works I strongly
recommend reading the GeoBase Principles, Policies, and Procedures
<http://www.geobase.ca/doc/GeoBase-ppp-v1_5_en.pdf>   (PPP) document.
It will give you a better understanding of the animal you are dealing
with.

Some Questions

Let me start by making it clear that I am asking these questions to help
my understanding.  Nothing here is intended to stop, or delay the groups
progress in loading the GeoBase information into the OSM.  

My first question has to be "Why are you doing this?".  I have spent
some time looking through the OSM web site and I understand the rational
for building street maps where none exist or at least are not generally
available but that is not the case here.  I know of at least two other
complete downloads of the GeoBase data for redistribution but still do
not fully understand the reasons for replication / duplication.  

Secondly - How does this group expect maintenance to work?  When the
data suppliers pass updates to the GeoBase portal team and those updates
are made available then GeoBase and OSM will be out of sync.  What are
the expectations on how or when they will be brought back into sync?

And finally, for now, Are there any comments or questions you would like
to direct to the GeoBase Steering Committee?  We don't always hear back
from those who are using the GeoBase portal and it's data but want to.
Please speak up if you have something to say to us.

In closing I would like to suggest that you also check out the video at
YouTube that shows some of the research we have been involved with
looking at interoperability of diverse geomatics data bases.  The video
is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIZLc_qHYZc in English and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXvUqWVtjQo in French.

Thanks for your time.

 

Mike Mepham

Federal/Provincial/Territorial Liaison

GeoConnections Program

Natural Resources Canada

 

E-Mail:  MMepham at NRCan.gc.ca <mailto:MMepham at NRCan.gc.ca>  



 

Ottawa

Regina

Phone:

(613) 992-8549

(306) 780-3634

Fax:

(613) 947-2410

(306) 780-5191

Address:

06Ath Floor, Room. 646R 

615 Booth Street

Ottawa, ON Canada  K1A 0E9

100 Central Park Place

2208 Scarth Street

Regina, SK Canada  S4P 2J6

 

 

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