With Liberty & Free Data for All?

Happy 4th of July!

Recently I saw information on what is happening in California with regard to their policies on GIS data. They had similar rules about charging no more than the cost of duplication, as here in Iowa, but some counties were not adhering to that policy. That has now been tested in court and upheld - that they can only charge the cost of creating that copy of the GIS data.

This seems to tie in somewhat with IGIC's endeavor to start building the IGI, or Iowa's contribution to the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.

For more information, please visit these links:
The entire court decision - http://www.cfac.org/content/cfac_v_santaclara.PDF
The 2005 Attorney General opinion - (http://ag.ca.gov/opinions/yearly_index.php?year=2005 , Look for 04-1105).

IGIC email list archives

As a heads-up to those of you who might ever be looking for IGIC email list archives:

http://groups.google.com/group/igic/topics

The archive has been archiving since May of 2006.

IGIC Committee Charters

Over the last six months, the IGIC Executive Committee and the individual IGIC Committee Chairs have worked to draft the following committee charter documents.

Each of the committees have a draft document that is available for review and comment. Each follow the same template and have looked to pull out information that is specific to the individual committees so that committee chairs can have a better idea of the direction and purpose for their respective committees. Also, it is hoped that people like you can get a better understanding of what the committees are in existence for, what they're working towards and make it generally easier to get some interest and input into IGIC.

The next step after adoption of each of the Committee charter documents by the IGIC Board would the creation by each committee of an annual workplan that addresses the objectives outlined in the committee charter document and the IGIC strategic plan. It is anticipated that the committee charters will be formally reviewed every two years.

• Executive Committee

• Finance Committee
  
• Strategic Planning & Bylaws Committee
  
• Iowa Geospatial Infrastructure Workgroup
• Clearinghouse Committee
  
• Outreach Committee
  
• Education

• Geodetic Committee
  
• Natural Resources Committee
  
• Health Committee
  
• Remote Sensing Committee
  
• Technical Issues Committee
  

Imagery for the Nation Update

NSGIC is planning a series of updates to keep people informed about progress on the Imagery for the Nation Iinitiative.

The current document can be found here.

The next one will be issued at the end of July. It will briefly summarize the results of the Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and provide other relevant information.

2007 IGIC Conference Award Recipients

Congratulations to the following award recipients. Enough can not be said about the three individuals who received awards at this year's conference and what they have done to further the cause of geospatial coordination in Iowa.

The Achievement & Contribution in GIS (A member that you feel is always in the mix, always producing and trying to serve Iowa's GIS community - a member that exemplifies what we want IGIC to be known for) was awarded to Mr. Terry Brase of Kirkwood Community College

The Project Energizer (given to an individual identified as continually putting out ideas, mobilizing people, and seeing it through to completion) was awarded to Mr. Jim Giglierano of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The Networking Award (given to individual that best repeatedly make the connections the group needs) was awarded to Mr. Herb Kuehne with the City of Sioux City Police Department

2007 Iowa GIS Conference - Poster Session Results

Thank you to the 21 entries into the 2007 IGIC Conference Poster session.

This year's poster session was broken out into three distinct categories with awards for outstanding posters in each category.

• Student Category:
• First Place: Mr. Khalil Ahmad of Iowa State University for "Early Warning Systems to Improve U.S. Biosecurity".
  
  
• Cartographic Category:
• First Place: Ms. Micah Cutler of Hardin County for "Hardin County Rural Property Map".
• Second Place: Mr. Casey Kohrt of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for "Landforms of Iowa"
  
  
• Analytical Category:
• First Place: Ms. Lauri Sohl of the City of Sioux Falls, SD for "Using Remotely Sensed Imagery to Determine Impervious Surface in Sioux Falls".
• Second Place: Ms. Robin McNeely of Iowa State University for "Iowa Digital Historic Aerial Photos".

From these awardees in each of the categories, the judges awarded a best overall poster for the 2007 conference. Judged as the best overall poster for this year's conference was "Using Remotely Sensed Imagery to Determine Impervious Surfaces in Sioux Falls" by Lauri Sohl.

Congratulations to all awardees and thank you to all participants who made the effort to display their work for all to see.

And on a final note, thank you to Robin McNeely for volunteering to head-up efforts for this year's poster session and thank you to our judges: Bob Lemen; Joe Eckmann; and Mel Obbink.