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Program Updates

November 2024 Program Status Update

Celebrating 100,000 Datasets and Counting

100000 Records

The BTAA-GIN Geoportal has reached an impressive milestone: over 100,000 geospatial resources, with a large percentage of this growth happening in the past year alone!

Whether you're researching urban planning, environmental change, or historical maps, the Geoportal connects you to data from state and local governments, universities, and beyond. With one powerful interface, you can uncover a vast range of datasets to power your research.

October 2024 Program Status Update

Monthly Highlight: Welcome to our new Associate Director

Bar chart of maps and dataset over time

We are happy to announce that Colleen Wilson has joined the Big Ten Academic Alliance's Geospatial Information Network as our new Associate Director of Program Management and Outreach Coordination. In this newly created role, Colleen will play a vital part in stakeholder engagement and work to strengthen connections within our diverse geospatial data community. Her leadership will be instrumental in driving outreach initiatives, coordinating program goals, and managing team activities.

September 2024 Program Status Update

Monthly Highlight: Newly published article about ephemeral data

Bar chart of maps and dataset over time

A new article titled "Ephemeral Geodata: An Impending Digital Dark Age," co-authored by four BTAA-GIN Team Members, was recently published in the Journal of Map & Geography Libraries. The authors explore a long-standing challenge for our program, framing the lack of public geodata archives as a "looming digital dark age." This analysis is based on our experiences managing the BTAA Geoportal and GeoData@Wisconsin, as well as our roles as map librarians. This article not only highlights a widespread issue but also provides a compelling rationale for our new initiative, the BTAA-GIN Geodata Collection, which aims to address gaps in the availability and accessibility of geospatial resources.

August 2024 Program Status Update

Monthly Highlight: Priority Project Matrix

Allmaps.

This year, the BTAA-GIN has adopted a new Priority Projects model to streamline our work and focus on the most impactful goals. We began by collecting 17 project suggestions, which we prioritized using a matrix that considered factors such as project ownership, volunteer availability, DEIA relevance, time commitment, and difficulty. This matrix, inspired by the Minnesota Geospatial Advisory Council's workflows, helped us assess each project's likelihood of success. We then had team members vote on the importance of each project, creating a value score. By multiplying the likelihood of success by the value score, we categorized the projects into five high priority, six medium, and six low priority. Each committee has been assigned multiple projects, with some tasks designated for dedicated workgroups and others for individuals, including the Product Manager and a new hire.


March 2024 Program Status Update

Monthly Highlight

We had the honor of being invited by Yale University Libraries to present our expertise in GeoBlacklight, OpenGeoMetadata, and the BTAA Geoportal to their Associate University Librarians. Our overview included development requirements, metadata strategies, collaboration successes, and our recommended priorities.

Our slides are below: