Community Access to Natural Resources Information
...the power of shared information
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Community Access to Natural Resources Information |
...the power of shared information |
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2 CANRI at a GlanceSection 2 is an overview of the CANRI program from an organisational perspective. We'll address issues of particular interest to agency managers and policy decision makers. We'll also offer some views on CANRI that may help more technical readers gain a broad appreciation of how it all fits together. If you're looking for a quick start and want to skip the background, go straight to Getting started with CANRI, where you'll find a linked guide to the popular CANRI DIY Four-Step. As shown below, the Four Steps actually sit in context with two main options, Providing an End-user Application, and/or Providing Data Products. Depending on your organisation's requirements, some combination of the four highlighted steps below will be involved in your CANRI participation. Figure 1: Four Steps for Do-It-Yourself participation in CANRI
2.1 Why CANRI?Many people find out about CANRI because they are trying to do something very sensible: they want to see their own information in context with the information that others have produced. Over the years, NSW natural resources agencies have come to recognise that much of their own data, while valuable in its own right, is even more valuable when it can be combined with information managed by other agencies. To coordinate an information sharing network, these agencies formed the Natural Resources Information Management Strategy (NRIMS). CANRI is the action program in front of the NRIMS strategy. [more info about NRIMS and related policy processes] CANRI isn't a piece of software you install, and it's not a service you pay for: it's a standard way of doing things. When agencies support these standards, the result is an "information sharing network". Another term for this is "interoperability". 2.2 Who benefits from CANRI?CANRI is based on publicly available, industry-standard technologies: it is an "open" framework. This openness means that natural resource agencies, local councils, non-profit groups and other organisations can proceed with investment in e-government mapping projects with a high degree of confidence. By working within the CANRI framework, they can ensure their ability to collaborate with institutional and public partners. CANRI's strategic goal is to improve access to natural resources information for all kinds of environmental decision-makers as well as the general public. Specific target groups include:
Since CANRI is a collaborative framework, it provides benefit opportunities at many levels. Helping agencies fulfil e-Government obligationsCANRI establishes a supporting framework to encourage the development of internet facilities that empower community involvement in a broad range of government, environmental and natural resource reforms. The CANRI program addresses a number of major government initiatives:
Through CANRI, each agency has the following means of delivering on service obligations and/or operational efficiency:
The first question your organisation will need to answer is: "What are we trying to achieve?" CANRI is especially relevant if your responses include:
But this vision of seamless collaboration is not without its challenges . . . you'll need to ponder carefully issues such as:
Nonetheless, the potential benefits to government and community objectives are enormous. Tools and strategies for maximising value of investmentThe distributed, standards based nature of the CANRI framework supports a growing pool of data services, technology options and best-practice knowledge that dramatically change the ability of participating agencies to cost effectively deliver and maintain new spatial applications via web technologies. Such applications may be deployed on the public internet, on private intranet or on access controlled “extranet” environments. The CANRI framework helps network participants:
2.3 What does it cost to be involved with CANRI?For many agencies, cost is a determining factor in the level of participation afforded to CANRI. Answering the question can involve a serious commitment to planning, needs analysis and technical infrastructure. There's no special shortcut through this terrain: on the other hand, any agency who has already committed to providing online data or applications is at least halfway toward participation in CANRI. The basic factors associated with CANRI participation can be assessed through the following sections in this document:
Costing estimatesMost organisations will find that there's a CANRI solution that's the right size for their budgets. While it's possible to come up with a million dollar project, many more are a matter of a few thousand dollars, mostly in labour. The range of possibilities far exceeds our ability to provide any useful discussion of the matter in the DIY. Here are a few pointers:
Commercial and open source software options: choosing what's right for youCommercially available software exists that can fulfil part or all of the requirements for participation in CANRI. Commercial software is commonly provided with extensive documentation, guidance material and support mechanisms. Of course such features and the peace of mind they bring come at a price. Open source software is usually developed through a community of developers. While it can often lack the packaging and support mechanisms that come with commercial software, open source alternatives are much more adaptable to your particular needs. The more mature open source projects are far more flexible, robust and secure than many of their commercial counterparts: Apache and Linux are but two examples of this. Nonetheless, installing, configuring and maintaining open source software usually requires more technical expertise. You will need to evaluate the balance between investment in technical expertise (either in-house or via a contractor) required for open source alternatives compared to the benefits and limitations of a commercial product. It is important to note that CANRI makes every effort to make sure there is an open-source, public domain solution for each of these factors. Perhaps the best place to research open-source options is the FreeGIS project at: http://freegis.org. Following is a summary of open source alternatives for each of the main functional components involved in CANRI participation. Complete references for each product are provided in the related sections of this document. Table 3: Open-source (non-commercial) Options
2.4 Where can I get advice?If you represent an organisation with an interest in NSW environmental issues and you wish to make your own information more accessible to others, or use the CANRI framework in your own website, we would welcome your involvement. Please contact us for further discussions: canri@canri.nsw.gov.au If you are interested in having information about your datasets included in the NRDD or would like more details about the directory, please contact the Convenor of the NSW Metadata Working Group at nrdd@dlwc.nsw.gov.au. And of course, make sure to join the two CANRI mailing lists, CANRI-Talk and CANRI-News. Subscribe online at: www.canri.nsw.gov.au/feedback_register.html. 2.5 Are there security risks?Security concerns are often foremost in the minds of IT and agency staff who are responsible for organisational integrity both at a network level and in terms of product liability. Although there are no simple, comprehensive answers to these concerns, we can offer some general insights that might assist. First and foremost, there is nothing special about CANRI's technical implementation that introduces new types of security risk. CANRI uses standard http protocol, so standard web security approaches apply. Product liability/privacyData provided through a CANRI-registered dataserver is available to the public. For many data custodians, this is not a problem since their data is well organised and current. However, if there are concerns specific to the nature of the information in a particular product, you may consider preparing a "public version" of your data specifically for release through CANRI. This approach gives public users a data product that is useful and accurate, but not necessarily complete. Giving users at least some indication of what your data is all about can be a powerful incentive to build demand for your data with minimal risk. With sufficient demand, a justification for improving the underlying data quality can be established. Data servers and applicationsGenerally, security is a matter for middleware applications to sort out. Customised access control options can be implemented in your application's middleware if there are specific policy-level restrictions that apply. Although there has been some thinking about how to generalise such controls, at the moment it is still a matter for custom development. Data servers are not generally a point of vulnerability as they work within the normal restrictions imposed on such programs. For instance, DSLite is a CGI program that writes only to a log file on the server (other than this it is "read only"). All of the Java-based solutions are as secure as any other servlet: there are no unique risks in the CANRI context. Security watching briefTo date, there have been no identified security risks associated with CANRI. If you would like to discuss these matters further, please get in touch with the CANRI Systems Working Group. 2.6 Who is supporting CANRI?CANRI is supported by government, NGOs, community and industry working together on a number of specific projects targeted at key community sectors or issues. The CANRI program builds on work already done under the NSW Natural Resources Information Management Strategy (NRIMS). This strategy, a cooperative effort between thirteen New South Wales natural resources management and other agencies, aims to develop common standards and technologies to provide accurate, current and integrated information to decision-makers and the broader NSW community. CANRI has received capital funding over four years from July 2000. Funding has also been obtained from other sources such as the Commonwealth’s Australian Coastal Atlas project. Natural resources management agencies:
Other agencies:
NGO and Community Sector
Commercial Developers
If your organisation is relevant to CANRI and you're not listed here, please let us know by sending an email to: canri@canri.nsw.gov.au 2.7 Which standards does CANRI support?CANRI helps agencies and others implement online geo-spatial facilities that comply with applicable international and local standards. Generally, these standards are developed in collaboration with industry and organisational stakeholders. At a global level, standards for geospatial information are developed and administered by the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC). Here in Australia, the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) facilitates the implementation of a range of policies, including the adoption of standards such as those developed by the OGC. These standards are in turn expressed through the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI) process. CANRI is responsible for alignment and coordination of these standards as they are implemented by NSW natural resources agencies, and particularly within the enabling projects CANRI sponsors such as the NRDD catalog and other products such as the WMC application configuration tool. The standards process itself is driven by data custodians and technology developers who communicate needs and opportunities with each other, fashioning the shape of interoperablity standards as they go. CANRI is related to other standards processes as well, such as the development of data models and a data model repository for use in the natural resources management community. The relevant standards for CANRI include: Table 4: Summary of CANRI-supported standards
CANRI maintains interlocking relationships with these national and international programs. Following is a brief introduction to each. OpenGIS Consortium (OGC)OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 220 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geoprocessing specifications. Open interfaces and protocols defined by OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT, and empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. The OGC development process provides protocols and standards that are implemented and promoted through the CANRI framework. The OGC standards are referred to in a series of trademarked "OpenGIS" implementation specifications. These specifications are recognised through the International Standards Organisation (ISO). Australia-New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC)ANZLIC is the peak council for public sector spatial data management in Australia and New Zealand. Its members represent the jurisdictional coordinating arrangements in their jurisdiction. ANZLIC provides an overarching framework within which other national bodies contribute to ANZLIC objectives. Those bodies include the Public Sector Mapping Agencies (PSMA), the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) and the Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia (CGNA). While surveying, mapping and property-related data are important components of Australia's and New Zealand's spatial data infrastructures, ANZLIC recognises that the community has interests in a much broader range of spatial data and that there is a need to provide comprehensive coordinating arrangements that embrace those types of data, including coastal and marine data and natural resources data. An important feature of ANZLIC is that it represents an extensive community of coordination arrangements that give it the capacity for drawing together the views and interests of spatial data users and producers across a wide range of disciplines. Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI)www.anzlic.org.au/asdi/asdimain.htm The Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI) is an initiative facilitated by ANZLIC (the Spatial Information Council). The ASDI is a mechanism to provide better access to the wide range of spatial information held by many government agencies and other bodies around Australia. Creating the ASDI has strategic, institutional and technical implications affecting all levels of government and the private sector. It must create a situation where all sources of spatial information are able to make their data available which meet their requirements. More importantly, a successful ASDI must provide a reliable framework to provide value-adding applications delivering information products and services to end-users in government, business and community. ANZLIC has been working with all governments, and more recently the private sector, to create an environment in which the ASDI can be created. Efforts have included:
Australian Spatial Data Dictionary (ASDD)www.auslig.gov.au/asdd/about.htm The ASDD is a national initiative supported by all governments under the auspices of the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC). The ASDD aims to improve access to Australian spatial data for industry, government, education and the general community through effective documentation, advertisement and distribution. The directory will link government and commercial nodes in each State/Territory and spatial data agencies within the Commonwealth Government. A key objective of the ANZLIC strategic plan is to promote the development of the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI) that will improve access to and availability of nationally consistent spatial datasets. The ASDD is an essential component of the ASDI and incorporates information about datasets (metadata) from all jurisdictions. The technology being used for the ASDD is the Z39.50 search and retrieval protocol which when combined with the World Wide Web provides a simple method of searching, discovery and retrieval of spatial data. More detail is available in the Technical Documentation (www.environment.gov.au/net/asdd/tech/) that also includes instructions for configuring a node in the ASDD. Federal Geographic Data CommitteeThe US Federal Geographic Data Committee coordinates the development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). The NSDI encompasses policies, standards and procedures for organizations to cooperatively produce and share geographic data. The 17 federal agencies that make up the FGDC are developing the NSDI in cooperation with organizations from state, local and tribal governments, the academic community and the private sector.
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© 2002 NSW Government - Community Access to Natural Resources Information canri@canri.nsw.gov.au |
