GTR19 July-Aug 2013 Sample

Can the cloud revitalise council IT?

GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

Planning Melbourne in 3D

AUGUST 2013 • ISSUE 19

Treasury’s big-data reinvention

YOUR DATA

IS YOUR

WEAKNESS

GEOSPATIAL CROWDSOURCING

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Mobility roundtable

2013/4 Government Suppliers Directory

regulars

2 Editor’s letter 4 News 41 Ovum, Spatial Vision, Tait Communications, Esri, BlinkMobile, Nuance, CAMMS 63 NBN Update

Features

cover story:

16 City of Melbourne in 3D It would have been science fiction just years ago, but new investments in geographical information systems are giving city planners unprecedented, immersive 3D views of their cities. GTR checks out the City of Melbourne’s pace-setting 3D mapping efforts.

YOUR DATA IS YOUR WEAKNESS

It’s barely past midyear and 2013 is already setting records in terms of the number and intensity of cyber-attacks.

Foreign governments are being fingered for alleged cyber-espionage, hackers seem to be breaking through any data protections the private sector and government can muster, and skilled security specialists are already stretched to breaking point.

This is the new e-government – but can we learn to survive?

SPECIAL features

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28 Scale: the enemy of progress?

The National Broadband Network may seem like a monstrous effort, but even it pales in comparison to many massive infrastructure projects.

We ask a megaproject-management expert how it might fail, or succeed.

36 Thinking globally, acting locally They’re innovation-hungry but budget and governance-constrained; can cloud and mobile solutions help local governments carve a path forward?

Case studies 15 Port Hedland Port Authority This remote WA shipping facility is tapping into geospatial systems to better plan its heady future growth.

26 Australian Taxation Office The ATO is a higher profile target for malware than most government departments. Here’s how it keeps up.

50 Australian Treasury Big-data opportunities have pushed the Treasury towards better, more responsive data management.

You’ve got your whole world, in their hands

Roundtable: Mobility and Mobile Applications

52 Tasmanian Planning Commission A massive consolidation effort is combining planning data from Tasmania’s 29 councils and publishing it online for all.

Increased access to geospatial technology is driving a revolution in the representation of complex data sets, and a new call to action for governments learning the value of crowdsourcing geospatial information. But is government really ready for the crowdsourced map?

Mobility is the hottest topic in IT right now – but its risks are as plentiful as its opportunities. We talk with several industry leaders to discuss the state of the art in mobile enablement, bring your own device (BYOD) policy, mobile security, and device management. technologies.

63 Sorrell Council Prompted by the NBN’s availability, Tasmania’s Sorrell Council is uniting citizens online to support emergencyservices efforts.

GTR AUGUST 2013 | 1

EDITOR David Braue e: editor@govtechreview.com.au

I read the news today. Oh, boy.

It’s not exactly what Lennon and McCartney were writing about all those years ago, but the seemingly constant stream of IT security issues continues to dominate the headlines – and has no doubt had more than a few government IT managers waking in cold sweats, or from that dreaded 3am phone call.

Things are only getting worse: yesterday’s risk of accidentally catching a virus has been augmented by a much nastier threat as a new breed of security attack, designed to carefully wriggle through a department’s IT chainmail defences link by excruciating link. Today’s malware sneaks into modern computing environments and makes nary a sound as it exfiltrates secret documents, citizen information, operational details and more.

Advanced persistent threats (APTs) have changed the game for good, and cyber-criminals have proven unrelenting in their use of APTs and pursuit of new threats to torment you and your peers.

The real extent of cybersecurity’s impact is only becoming clear as more and more cases come to light – and you can bet that for every compromise we hear about, there are another 100 that nobody’s sharing. Expected compulsory breach-notification legislation could change that, but there’s no need to wait that long as good IT practice is increasingly being discussed at higher and higher levels within the organisation.

Odds are that you’ve already been targeted, or even hacked. Do you know about it? Are you ready to respond? Can you even tell stakeholders what happened?

It’s a harsh climate and even the strongest are being picked off with frightening regularity. Smaller government organisations are also being targeted – but with smaller IT teams, a lack of dedicated security staff, and little budget for the high-end analysis tools needed to pick out APTs, odds are that many government organisations are sitting ducks.

Now that I’ve scared you, perhaps it’s time for some news that will make you happier. Consider, for example, our geospatial feature, in which we talk about how forward-looking government bodies are weighing crowdsourcing as a way to improve the accuracy and relevance of their operational data.

It’s a geospatial revolution and new driver for citizen engagement, all in one.

There are a fair few geospatial tidbits peppered throughout the issue – including our field visit to the City of Melbourne, which like several other Australian cities is exploring the possibilities of 3D modelling to speed the evaluation of planning proposals and improve the conceptualisation of future visions of Australia’s second city. Some of the uses for the system might surprise you.

Also in this issue, we catch up with the state of the art in local-government software, and find out how new cloud-based technologies promise to almost completely free councils of the burden of IT management. Are you ready to take the plunge?

We speak with a world expert on management of massive infrastructure projects which, it turns out, have more in common with our national broadband network (NBN) than you might think. And, speaking of experts, we’ve got several of them in our latest roundtable – in which we discuss the future of mobility and mobile applications.

Thumb through and you’ll also find the usual assortment of case studies, expert opinion pieces, and the latest NBN developments – which, depending on your political bent, may be as scary as the threat of APTs. For the government IT strategist, it’s all just another day in the life.

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2 | GTR August 2013

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Victoria CFA gets regional digital radio dispatch upgrade

‘Cloud-first’ federal government procurement policy launched A wholesale movement of Australian government Web sites is among the many initiatives mooted after Australia’s federal government released a “cloud-first” policy that requires federal agencies to prioritise the use of public cloud services for new IT purchases.

The National Cloud Computing Strategy (NCCS) is built around three core goals: maximising the value of cloud computing in government; promoting cloud computing to small businesses, not-for-profits and consumers; and supporting a vibrant cloud services sector.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) will take a key role in efforts to promote cloud adoption across government agencies. This includes the pursuit of specific action items around the three core goals, including: • Educating government decision makers about how to evaluate, procure and manage cloud services.

• Establish information-sharing initiatives for sharing best-practice case studies, risk management approaches and practical lessons based on other agencies’ experiences.

• Adjustment to procurement practices so that government agencies are required to consider public cloud services for new ICT procurements.

• The transition of public-facing Web sites to public cloud services.

• Development by year’s end of a business case that will analyse the benefits and drawbacks of centralising the provision of cloud services to Australian government agencies.

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AGIMO has been working to formalise policies for cloud computing for years: for example, the agency released its Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper (bit.ly/1dDFiKh) two years ago.

Having cloud procurement formalised as government policy, however, takes the idea to a significant new level. Conroy’s department will work with the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research, and Tertiary Education to enlist member associations and tailor information to particular industry segments, improve SMB education about cloud services, and enhance the existing Digital Enterprise, Enterprise Connect, Technology and Knowledge Connect, Digital Local Government and Small Business Advisory Service programs.

The government will also work with the Australian Computer Society and other stakeholders to develop a voluntary Cloud Consumer Protocol to improve disclosure and transparency for cloud consumers. It will also formalise guidance for cloud providers around the new privacy laws that will begin in March 2014.

As well as promoting and educating the market about cloud opportunities, the NCCS will see the government working with industry and educational institutions to build skills and training pathways for “cloud-aware ICT professionals”. Australia will be promoted through Austrade as a “trusted hub” for data storage and processing, with the aim of luring foreign investment and participation.

The government will also be closely involved in ad hoc cloud computing issues as they arise.

Read the full policy (PDF) at bit.ly/15htFGr

CFA brigades in Victoria will gain access to digital radio services after Telstra, in conjunction with Motorola Solutions, was chosen to supply and maintain a wireless communications infrastructure linking nearly 500 brigades across the state.

The 18-month upgrade forms part of the $42.9 million Regional Radio Dispatch Service (RRDS) project, which was kicked off in 2010 to boost communications between CFA brigades and a centralised dispatch operation.

That’s a big change from the current situation, in which CFA crews in rural areas are forced to liaise with a local group communications officer, who then relays the messages to support and dispatch crews.

Digital Tait Radio units, which are currently running on an analogue network, will be reconfigured to support the new digital services as the rollout begins in earnest in November, with services expected to be live across all regional brigades by mid 2014.

The introduction of digital radio will “reduce the need for group communications officers to support day-to-day dispatch communications activities,” CFA chief officer Euan Ferguson said in a statement.

“However, this role will remain essential for incident management communications and these members will continue to maintain their skills through regular training and exercises.”

AGIMO, CeBIT awards recognise government ICT innovation

and the private sector – was named the best geospatial project.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Census Spotlight project took out the prize in the Government 2.0 category, while Adelaide City Council’s Microsoft Lync-based unified communications implementation was awarded in the Project and Program Management category.

Fraser Coast Regional Council puts facilities bookings online The more than 100,000 residents of Queensland’s Fraser Coast region will have self-service access to council facilities bookings after the Fraser Coast Regional Council signed a deal to implement a Web-based bookings system.

The council will implement the UK-developed Zipporah bookings system (distributed locally by ICON Software) to allow residents 24/7 access to view and book available times to access council facilities including galleries, theatres, open space, parks and meeting venues.

An integrated payment and delivery system complements the booking engine, while online administration, full help desk, and a suite of reporting tools allow councils to track ratepayer activities online. The full solution is expected to be live by the end of the year.

“We were looking for an innovative and time saving solution for the community to book council facilities and services,” Chris Goodwin, projects co-ordinator for community and development with the council said in a statement, noting that the process is “traditionally a time consuming process.”

“Once Zipporah is installed we are looking forward to an immediate time and cost saving to our council, whilst at the same time simplifying the booking process for the community.”

A number of individuals were also recognised in the awards, with Pia Waugh of the Department of Finance taking home the Government 2.0 Innovator Award and Kiama Municipal Council’s John Holland and the Wollondilly Shire Council IT team receiving the ICT Professional of the Year Awards.

Read the full list of winners and finalists at bit.ly/Z4GSmp. Also announced on the night were the winners of the CeBIT.AU Business Awards, which were run in conjunction with the massive ICT conference held in Sydney.

MyNetFone took out one of the four awards, in the Outstanding Project category, for its work implementing Voice over IP services to the Tasmanian government. The project, according to the judges, “delivered a financial and technical outcome which allowed seamless migration to the nextgeneration technologies in the future.”

Photo credit: CC BY-SA 3.0, Photnart

Sunshine Coast Council, DMITRE, Adelaide City Council and other government bodies were popping the champagne as Kate Lundy announced the winners of the Australian Government ICT Awards at a gala dinner during CeBIT. The awards, which are run annually by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), recognise ICT best practice at all levels of government and were highlighted by the naming of the Department of Human Services as the Overall Excellence in eGovernment (and Service Delivery category award winner) for their Express Plus mobile app.

Queensland’s Sunshine Coast Council won in the Applications Development Category for an eBusiness platform providing a single window to online services, while the South Australian Resources Information Geoserver (SARIG) 2020 project – which integrates over 400 spatial data sets from across government

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Contracts extend NEC, Unisys government roles Solution and service providers NEC Australia and Unisys have each secured extensions to far-reaching IT services and facilities management contracts that extend their roles in the Northern Territory Government (NTG) and federal Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC), respectively.

Unisys, for one, secured a $104.1m, five-year extension to its desktop management and user support services for DIAC’s 8000

staff, who are spread across 60 locations and supported through a unified service desk that handles 25,000 calls per month.

The five-year program will build on the organisations’ success in recent years, which include the consolidation of DIAC’s five data centres into just two; the procurement of more than 7000 end-user devices and the rollout of Microsoft Windows 7 to all users; and the implementation of security measures that allow

the secure emailing, editing and storage of PROTECTED level materials.

Unisys has been providing services to DIAC since 2007.

NEC’s multi million-dollar NT deal gives the company a 12-month extension on the company’s network management contract, which involves the management of the NTG’s more than 500 data communications links – including associated infrastructure such as routers; LAN, firewalls and core switching systems; and mail and Web systems. That contract has been in place since 2010.

Also renewed for NEC are separate contracts for management of the NT government’s 20,000-endpoint IP telephony network – which covers 300 sites across the NT and includes 24x7 support for government sites – and management and support of 16,000 desktops and 400 servers spread across the government’s sites.

“NEC Australia is honoured to secure three contract extensions with the Northern Territory Government this month,” said NEC’s NT state manager Trevor Oliver in a statement that noted the company currently has 240 staff in the NT. “NEC takes price in our local expertise, delivering quality technology support that enhances community services in the Northern Territory.”

Complete a data-centre survey to support engineer charity Data-centre industry research group DCD Intelligence hopes to raise more than $50,000 for charity organisation Engineers Without Borders (www.ewb.org.au) – which flies engineers to poorly serviced areas to help with development projects – by encouraging datacentre professionals to fill out its 2013 Data Centre Industry Census survey.

The annual survey supports a charity of DCD Intelligence’s choice, and last year raised $40,000 for UNICEF after thousands of data-centre engineers filled out the 2012 survey (results at http://turt.co/dcd47b).

This year, the firm has boosted its targets by 25% and is aiming to get over 10,000 surveys completed – each of which will release $5 to the charity.

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The 2013 survey (turt.co/dcd47a) – the third run by the firm so far – has been designed to document the changes in the data centre industry, with questions around power consumption, energy-efficient technologies, outsourcing uptake, growth markets, regional differences, and more. Results will be published in September 2014.

“We welcome inputs from professionals in all areas of the data centre sector,” Nicola Hayes, managing director of DCD Intelligence, said in a statement. This includes “commercial, enterprise, co-location and governmental data center operators and users, consultants and suppliers of the many types of equipment, systems and software which make up these complex entities.”

“Because ours is such an engineering based sector, we thought it fitting this year to support a charity which makes engineers available to sustainable community-based development projects around the word. The 2013 Census donation will underwrite them being able to fly engineers to where they are needed to help with these vital projects.”

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You’ve ot your whole world, in their hands Australian governments’ interest in harnessing crowdsourced geospatial data is on the rise – not least because it’s seen as a good way of economically ensuring data sets are current and comprehensive.

For citizens, the ability to correct mistakes in geospatial information systems is attractive, as is the opportunity to attach latitude and longitude co-ordinates to reports of potholes in the road, graffiti or leaking pipes.

But as Geoff West, professor of spatial information at Curtin University and head of the CRC in Spatial Information notes, it’s still early days.

“We live in a federation” with three discrete levels of government,” he explains. “It’s still about how information gets gathered at the local level, gets aggregated to the State level and then to the Federal level.”

Nevertheless, Professor West says crowdsourcing geospatial data is currently viewed by government as a “quite important thing to get involved in because of the cost of maintaining data sets.” He is currently writing a research proposal for the CRC which will explore how crowdsourced information could intelligently integrate with “official” geospatial data.

The challenge, he says, is how to ensure the data submitted can be trusted. “You wouldn’t want someone out there with a smartphone plotting your polygon,” he explains. “You’d want a licensed surveyor.” However, he can envisage crowdsourced geospatial data being used to support teams responding to emergencies or for environmental applications.

He’s not the only person intrigued by such issues.

“There is a growing realisation of the benefits of spatial data, but there is limited application in government. Progress often depends on having a spatially aware person,” says Helen Owens, general manager of the national Office of Spatial Policy (OSP) – an organisation within the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism.

The OSP was established in 2011 to provide leadership around connection, maintenance, quality, dissemination and policy issues associated with spatial data as well as making Australia’s contribution to international standards development.

Putting councils on the map

Story by Beverley Head

Helen Owens

While Federal and State Governments have been traditional custodians of much geospatial data, it is local councils that are now pushing the envelope in terms of its application.

In their 2013 GIS in Local Government Benchmark study (bit.ly/WTwvL3), the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) and geospatial specialist ESRI Australia noted that 68 per cent of local councils claimed to have a grasp of the value of geographical information systems with the most popular applications being

g eospatial

Source: SSSI/Esri

for asset management, customer service and emergency management.

Ta Muzangaza, a GIS consultant at ESRI, confirms that there has been increasing demand for mapping software from councils and local government. “They are using location information – using latitude and longitude so you can start to pinpoint areas where you may need to send disaster recovery teams.

“With an iPhone you can take a photo and have the location attached, then start to create maps by uploading to an online GIS system. It’s simple enough to use but powerful. Adelaide City Council has an app for smartphone – it uses crowdsourced information to report maintenance needs, and it empowers the community.”

As Owens notes: “Now we all have location data at our fingertips, on tablets and smartphones.”

Single source of truth The challenge with all geospatial data – and in particular crowdsourced geospatial data – lies in validation. “Without validation, you risk not having a single point of truth,” says iSpatial regional director Brett Madsen.

And in geospatial information systems, he adds, the lack of a single point of truth is a euphemism for ‘wild goose chase’.

It is an issue being considered by the OSP. “One of the activities is the creation of an Australia and New Zealand foundation spatial data framework which involves pulling together data sets which are considered key,” says Owens.

The initiative is intended to deliver an authoritative source of accurate and robust data.

Not all applications of geospatial data needs to be perfectly accurate; as Owens says, finding a restaurant’s location requires less accuracy than a precision farming initiative.

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Source: SSSI/Esri

Prospecting for geospatial data in SA SARIG (sarig.pir.sa.gov.au) is an award-winning free web application allowing users to search, view and download information relating to minerals, petroleum and geothermal exploration in South Australia. The platform taps into five or six databases (themselves made up of 400 individual spatial databases) containing 125 years’ worth of data collection.

Neil Sandercock, manager of spatial information, says that with the arrival of Google and Microsoft Map, there was an explosion in crowdsourced data. “Everyone was a cartographer and mapmaker, and everyone expected access to maps which caught governments unprepared,” he said. “The Internet, broadband, hardware and software plus the Google Maps API means anyone with a spreadsheet can put geospatial information on the map.

Increasing discussions about crowdsourcing had made the subject ”very topical,” he added. “Government has not yet taken it on board – they don’t know how they are going to do it. Councils have done it for action to be taken, and some environmental groups, like Koala Mapper, take photos and tag it with geospatial information. And in an emergency, I can see it being extremely valuable.

“The issue for government is what to do with it – to assimilate, moderate and curate the information.”

He claims that at the moment the issue is “more community volunteered data rather than crowdsourced. The issue for government is in dealing with the influx of data packets: you need to moderate it or publish with disclaimers. We in the government probably would not have the resources to curate the data – so we would probably tag it.”

– Beverley Head

g eospatial

She acknowledges that the process is taking longer than originally anticipated, but that late this or early next year her office should be ready to publish then build and test an implementation of these data sets.

At present, the data sets are owned and managed by individual Federal, State and Territory governments, but Owens’ office is attempting to broker broader access. As to the quality of the data sets, Owens says, that remains a hard question to answer.

“What we do know is that our addressing data set is one of the best in the world, but it does have gaps,” she says. “It’s a tricky thing working on federation data sets which may not, for example, match at the borders – and some standards might be different. But it’s important to establish the single source of truth.”

That source of truth becomes even more important when utilising geospatial data to shape government responses – for example, in planning effective incident and emergency management.

“We know from experience with disasters and floods and fires that it is not one government in one jurisdiction coming to the fore,” she says.

“They come across jurisdictional boundaries.”

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Western Power keeps geospatial data current Western Power, which supplies electricity to 1.5 million Western Australians, has integrated its geospatial information system with the high-resolution photographic mapping system Nearmap, which prides itself on being more current than most other maps – although it has a mainly metropolitan and urban footprint.

Nearmap managing director Simon Crowther claims that there is significant interest in the maps from all three levels of governments. For example, he says, the Department of Climate Change has used Nearmap services to administer the Solar Credits scheme – ensuring that solar panels have been installed as claimed.

Ian Baldwin, principal project coordinator for a geospatial information system deployed to improve Western Power’s asset management, says the company is now working out how to make use of crowdsourced geospatial data, and ensure that it’s accurate and relevant.

He indicated that the model could be similar to the Neatstreets smartphone application (www.neatstreets.com.au),

which allows consumers to send in reports tagged with latitude and longitude data of litter or graffiti, which can then be fixed by the appropriate agency.

For the consumer, he says, simplicity is the key: “You don’t need to understand who owns something; they determine who needs to know. Take a picture of white ant activity – you’ve got the latitude and longitude, then it goes to the relevant authority, and they send out a crew. It’s similar to Dial Before You Dig – providing a similar stack of information.”

Baldwin says Western Power will probably roll out a smartphone application of its own, but says that the challenge with crowdsourced data is to manage it effectively.

The company needs to consider “What we do, where to store it, how long we need to keep it from a regulatory point of view,” he explains. “The technical aspect of doing this is not very difficult. The challenge is more about how to use and store this. Who looks after it, who owns the information, how you archive it.” – Beverley Head

So might crowdsourced data plug some of the gaps? Owens acknowledges the increased ubiquity of location data courtesy of sensors, smartphones and tablets, but adds that “We have to try and work out the role of government in the supply chain of spatial data.

“The role of government is to make available spatial data that is cost effective and has authority,” she continues. “That’s not to say that won’t change as crowdsourced data becomes more accurate and ubiquitous, but in some instances it will remain government data.”

To date her office has not issued any guidance on the use of crowdsourced geospatial data, although she expects the gazetteer, or place-names database, which is being compiled may prove to be a test case for how to manage crowdsourced data.

“The main issues are around what it is used for. Fine if you are in a town and looking for a restaurant – but you wouldn’t want to send an ambulance to a location that is crowdsourced.

“The caveat is that we need a process in place to allow for the verification of crowdsourced data,” she adds. “There is a visual way to do that with a photo and location data. In the

Madsen, however, can envisage this form of tablet style application used by communities of interest, to perhaps map and name bike riding trails, with the information being made available to emergency services in the case of an accident.

Cameron Shorter has been working in software development and open standards for the last 15 years, and is on the board of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), a non-profit and non-government body promoting collaborative geospatial development.

While a proponent of open source and open data, Shorter conceded that data quality issues could arise. “Geospatial is just another form of data, but a bit more complex – and it runs into the same sort of quality problems,” he said. “The government needs to get the base processes right, and get the fundamentals right so that the core data sets are up to date.”

Openstreetmap (www.openstreetmap.org) is the best example of a global, crowdsourced geospatial data set, and Shorter said some governments are also inputting data to the site. He believes geospatial crowdsourcing will increase in the future, as does Scott Newman,

Queensland floods the government had a fantastic way of dealing with this: there was a flood mapping tool and a person could upload a photo of their damaged properly. Where there was a question mark someone was sent out to assess that.”

Tapping into citizen power Citizen empowerment is a constant theme among crowdsourcing proponents. “One of the biggest complaints from Joe Bloggs is that sometimes they find things are not in the right spot,” says iSpatial’s Brett Madsen. He says it can take two years for some maps to be updated.

His firm has recently released a Windows 8 tablet based system called 1edit that allows in-field geospatial data to be collected and contributed to a database. Such technologies are generally directed toward qualified forms of crowdsourcing or could be used to validate crowdsourced information. Professor West points to a similar initiative in West Australia where police working in the field are able to update the SLIP spatial data portal when they find an error or omission.

Are you ready for the digital location revolution?

To exploit these technologies and your data resources, please contact Graeme Martin on: 1300 36 67 96 or www.spatialvision.com.au/strategy

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“For example,” Newman said, “how hard would it be for Sydney Water to create an app, so that with a couple of quick clicks I could alert Sydney Water to where there was a leak?”

“The Government is looking in terms of crime monitoring, efficiency of assets and public planning,” he continued. “As you look more at demographic change you could be more predictive about the location of assets.

Singapore has Onemap (www.onemap.sg) where they know the position of every tree on every street...this is all intended to drive innovation.”

The challenge that many Government departments or public sector organisations see is managing the influx of data: Ambulance Victoria, for example, is increasing its use of mapping data and has already seen a 16-fold increase in its data warehouse in recent years.

“Size does become an issue, and the technology you need is very expensive,” says manager of enterprise architecture John Dousset, who says crowdsourced data – while interesting – “is not in our project plan at the moment.”

“Some emergency services overseas are dabbling with it,” Dousset added, “and I think

14 | GTR August 2013

we will wait and see how they go. I can see how a photo with a latitude and longitude would be interesting to access – but then you have to grapple with how to integrate that with a very structured organisation.”

NICTA is working on tools and approaches that might help simplify the issues. Bill SimpsonYoung, NICTA’s director of engineering and technical development, has been working on the organisation’s Geothermal Data Fusion project (bit.ly/10uCcRd), which requires analysis of geosensor data to find hot rocks for geothermal energy and groundwater modelling.

NICTA’s Project Subspace has established a visualisation engine that is separated architecturally from the data management engine. “You can have anyone’s data in the rich visualisation,” Simpson-Young explains.

“Subspace can be set up to read data from geospatial crowdsourced data.”

While data for NICTA’s groundwater and geothermal applications is unlikely to be crowdsourced any time soon, SimpsonYoung believes transport and environmental monitoring lend themselves to the collection of crowdsourced data. In the long term, then, the mantra for the future may well be: “Go forth and collect”.

GIS survey Highlights geospatial priorities

The GIS in Local Government Benchmark Study, conducted by SSSI and Esri Australia, provided an illuminating snapshot of current attitudes into the use of geospatial systems and information in everyday practice.

In many cases, those attitudes are still mired in old habits: for example, Adelaide City Council senior application support officer Robert Shields noted that GIS in the city “occasionally… is utilised but generally undervalued. There is a consistent trend to request maps, rather than involve GIS in the whole process.”

Of the 80% of councils where GIS played a role in development of council policies, 16% used it in planning and analysis, 11% in policy development, 7% in asset management, 2% in service delivery, and just 1% in each of maintenance and budgeting.

The major GIS priorities over the next five years will be cloud-based GIS services, data management, imagery, mainstream use of GIS technology, and mobile initiatives.

Smartphones were a popular target for geospatial efforts such as faster identification of infrastructure issues, with 24% already using the devices and 58% saying it was “highly likely” they would do so within the next two years.

Use of collaboration to improve data quality and value was broadly recognised as a valuable approach, with councils like Victoria’s Moreland City Council advocating “two-way public GIS”, 83% of respondents identifying the potential role of crowdsourced data in emergency response situations, and more than a third of respondents indicating they were already using crowdsourced data.

Fully 60% of respondents indicated they would consider making their data freely available, and 95% believed there should be increased ability for councils to share their information with other councils and government departments.

“If councils collaborated and hosted combined services, we could provide the community with a homogeneous centre of information,” said Stephen Yates, senior GIS officer with the City of Charles Sturt, SA. “Your council boundary shouldn’t be the determining factor in the information you receive.” – David Braue