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Minnesota Governor’s Council on Geographic Information

GIS Standards Committee

January 11, 2000

Attendees:

(Meeting handouts available on request. Call (651) 296-1208 or email: gc@mnplan.state.mn.us)

Action Items for Next Meeting:

INTRODUCTIONS, APPROVAL OF AGENDA AND LAST MEETING MINUTES

Announcements: Cialek announced a new Governor's Council policy to hold off site meetings. The next council meeting is January 12, 2000 at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The meeting agenda was accepted as presented. Minutes from 11/9/99 are posted on the web; any changes should be sent to Nicole Brown at: nicole.brown@mnplan.state.mn.us

STATUS REPORTS

Interest in promoting FGDC cadastral standard: [Handout: Info on Cadastral Standard, and National Integrated Land System (NILS)]
Cialek gave the committee a brief history of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Cadastral Standard and referred committee members to the handout for more detailed information.

At the last Standards Committee meeting Jay Krafthefer raised as a potential initiative promoting interest and education of the FGDC cadastral standard. Chris Cialek, Jay Krafthefer, and David Claypool met to strategize if and how the committee might promote the standard. The group thought that the Land Records Modernization Committee might be a good forum or partner to help craft a strategy. Since that time, Cialek met with the LRM committee to solicit their ideas and involvement.

Maki mentioned that the DNR is the largest land management concern in MN and in order to get a cadastral standard implemented, coordination needs to occur between local, county, state and federal level government.

Claypool is very interested in trying to get MN involved, he sits on the FGDC Cadastral subcommittee. Cialek queried the group as to their interest. He mentioned that perhaps this group could find a way to work with the LRM committee on advancing awareness of this standard. The group decided to wait and see how the LRM committee responds. Cialek will report this outcome to Claypool and Krafthefer.

Meeting with the IPC on NSSDA: Cialek contacted the IPC and will be meeting with them at the March 1, Executive Committee meeting with the intent of forwarding the NSSDA as a proposed state standard.

Hydrography committee status: Previously the Governor's Council discontinued its Hydrography Committee. It has recently been proposed by Fred Logman, Les Maki, Mark Olsen and Chris Cialek to fully re-instate the Committee, not just as a workgroup or advisory status. The Executive Committee met to take up the recommendation and asked that a workplan consisting of specific goals and deliverables be prepared for the next Governor's Council meeting. The reconstituted Hydrography Committee with Mark Olsen as chair, includes three initiatives: a user needs/data inventory workgroup, a data model workgroup, and the watershed delineation workgroup. The goal is to reconstitute the committee and set some deliverables which can be accomplished by the end of the fiscal year. [Note: the Council approved this recommendation at its 1/12/00 meeting]

Unified data architecture for state agencies: Cialek reported that this working group was defined at the council's August retreat. The group met December 9, 1999 and started to figure out how to proceed: develop goals, a methodology or procedures to provide some deliverables. Wencl notes that this was created as the enterprise group. The committee needs to describe the end result, a home for the group and define a problem statement.

Steve Ring mentioned Michael Brackett, who developed a data architecture model for the State of Washington, might be a good resource. He noted that the committee could research his methodology. He has developed the concept of a "common data architecture" and has several books describing how to achieve it. View the web site: http://members.aol.com/mhbrackett/index.html

Cialek mentioned other data architecture implementation projects. Mel Boynton director of the Technology Policy Bureau, previously the Office of Technology, is working with the "DIG-IT" group to move toward a statewide architecture. Pat Cummens mentioned Eric Swanson with NSGIC and the State of Michigan Information Center are trying to create a common data architecture in that state. They are starting with a strategic plan to implement how to accommodate architecture, coordinate the agencies and work through the details.

Currently, the Standards Committee does not feel the need to form a working group and will keep this initiative at a more informal level.

DNR's MN Land Cover Classification System: Tanya Mayer reported that MetroGIS approved as a "current best practice" DNR's recently developed land cover classification system, a hybrid of existing schemes used for natural resource analysis projects in the metro area. Wencl expressed concern that too much was happening too fast. Before full adoption, more education and background information is needed. This topic will likely need to be considered in conjunction with a potential LCMR grant to update land use land cover mapping in MN. Robert Maki informed the group that the current classification system has not yet received final acceptance internally at the DNR. Wencl stressed education because this is only one component of land use/land cover. MetroGIS is interested in recommending an implementation method to its stakeholders. Members discussed that the classification system itself is a separate issue from implementation. When Cialek inquired as to a role in this debate for this committee, Les Maki recommended consolidating information from many sources and that this only be considered as a "best practice" rather than a standard. Cialek stated that if the opportunity arises to get involved the committee will be notified.

ATTRIBUTE STANDARDS WORKING GROUP

Attribute codes survey: Mark Kotz reported on the working group's web survey. The purpose of the survey is to get public input into a prioritization of standards they would like to see developed. The results will be collected over the next few weeks and distributed via e-mail to Standards committee members. 

Progress toward a statewide MCD coding standard: Kotz reported on the Minor Civil Division coding standard. The first standard that the committee promoted was a set of FIPS state codes. More recently, a three digit FIPS county code was successfully promoted by the committee. The next level is a MCD code. In Minnesota an MCD is defined as a city, civil township or unorganized territories. The standards committee is considering promoting another FIPS code (55-3) to represents all MCD's in the state and can be used in conjunction with the state and county codes already adopted. FIPS codes are standardized data codes used by the federal government. Place codes are numeric codes developed to describe a particular place and provide a common, single coding scheme for minor civil divisions in Minnesota.

Kotz asked committee members to review the MCD code proposal for possible statewide approval. If this scheme is adopted, a crosswalk table will be developed between these codes and other place codes currently in use. Wencl noted that a maintenance proposal must be drafted to incorporate all boundary changes that will be made to keep the MCD codes updated.

The committee convened and determined that the FIPS MCD code is a worthy cause and has established a goal to have this complete by July 1, 2000. Kotz submitted the following "to do" list:

CONSERVATION LANDS MAPPING TASK FORCE

Tim Ogg, from BWSR, reported on the Conservation Lands Mapping Task Force. Several different federal, state, and local projects are currently mapping or updating maps of lands in conservation easements or under conservation contracts. Prior to the taskforce, there was little coordination of these mapping projects. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) jointly convened the task force to address the concern that lack of coordination could result in incompatible, duplicative, and incomplete databases that would be difficult to access outside the agencies that developed them. The task force wants to ensure that data about conservation lands can be easily accessed by agencies and organizations that manage, plan, and evaluate conservation programs. The task force consists of representatives from federal, state, and local agricultural and conservation agencies.

The task force is working on guidelines for digitizing RIM data and CRP parcels and other data standards to work with this data. Currently, the project is between the Board of Water and Soil Resources and Minnesota Department of Agriculture. They have developed guidelines for developing digital conservation lands data.

Partners in this project are seeking a formal connection to the Governor's Council so as to continue their work under the guidance of the council. Members discussed various ways in which this group might fit in to the council structure. Cialek and Les Maki will meet with task force members to explore options and take a recommendation to the council's Executive Committee in February.

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting of the GIS Standards Committee is Tuesday, March 14, 2000, 9:30 - 11:30, Room 301, Centennial Office Building, St. Paul, MN.

ADJOURN

Meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.

Minutes submitted by N. Brown
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