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BTAA-GIN Geodata Curation Workgroup Final Report

By:Geodata Curation WorkgroupCreated: 2026
  • reports

Summary:Final report of Geodata Curation Workgroup

Active Time Period: June 2025 – February 2026

Purpose

Section titled “Purpose”

The workgroup was convened to oversee the transition of the BTAA-GIN Geodata Collection initiative from internal prototyping to implementation.

Requested Deliverables included:

  1. partnership agreements with at least two data providers

  2. a public collection launch

  3. the creation of Curation Plan Version 1

  4. front- and backend Geoportal enhancements

Challenges Encountered

Section titled “Challenges Encountered”

  • Defining a manageable collection scope, which required balancing the capacity for ingestion with the goal of identifying genuinely useful data.

  • Logistical issues concerning the management of data provider communications, the process of facilitating dataset transfers, and determining whether to passively harvest data or actively solicit submissions.

  • Technical difficulties related to understanding and communicating problems associated with popular data formats, particularly shapefiles and ArcGIS Hubs.

  • Long wait times between requesting data and receiving it, which lengthened the time the workgroup was active by two months.

Discussions and Decisions

Section titled “Discussions and Decisions”

  • Reviewed multiple curation strategies and endorsed the “Urban Base Layers” approach

  • Discussed how to contact and collect the data. Decided to move forward with establishing strong data provider relationships facilitated by local BTAA-GIN Team Members and manual dataset transfers

  • Recommended requesting data on an annual basis for simplicity and predictability

Deliverables:

Section titled “Deliverables:”

Uncompleted Tasks

Section titled “Uncompleted Tasks”

Due to concurrent work on overhauling the Geoportal, the group was not able to facilitate improvements, including batch ingests or a user-facing download package that would bundle additional assets and metadata. Relatedly, no user testing was conducted on the Geoportal data pages.

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”

  • A new operational model, using Cohorts, will be adopted for launching new cities, leveraging local GIN members to facilitate the process.

  • The Foundation Phase of the initiative will sunset

  • The Priority 1 Workgroup: Historical Data may determine future collection strategies

Members

Section titled “Members”

Lead: Colleen Wilson; Members: Jaime Martindale, Melinda Kernik, Amanda Tickner, Sue Oldenburg, Karen Majewicz