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December 2024 Program Status Update

BTAA-GIN is Now 17 Members Strong!

Washington and Oregon

We are thrilled to welcome the University of Oregon and the University of Washington to the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geospatial Information Network (BTAA-GIN). Their addition marks an exciting step forward in our mission to enhance the resources and expertise available to our members and the broader geospatial research community.

We welcome our new team members:

  • University of Oregon

    • Gabriele Hayden, Head of Data Services
    • Kathy Stroud, Cartographic and Government Information Librarian

  • University of Washington

    • Matt Parsons, Geospatial Data & Maps Librarian
    • Allison Anderson, GIS Infrastructure and Support Specialist

This growth strengthens our collective ability to support geospatial research and education, laying the groundwork for new collaborations that will benefit all BTAA-GIN members.

  • Collection Expansion: We look forward to collaborating with each institution to identify data and digital map collections that will enrich the Geoportal, which boasts over 100,000 resources.
  • Network Expansion: With these new members, the BTAA-GIN now includes 17 institutions, spanning coast to coast. This expansion highlights our commitment to supporting geospatial research and education across the BTAA. As one of the largest collaborations of its kind in the field of GIS, our network continues to grow in size and value, amplifying its positive impact on geospatial data and research.
  • A History of Collaboration: For over 9 years, the BTAA-GIN has exemplified academic collaboration, creating opportunities and driving innovation in geospatial services and tools across its member universities. The integration of these two renowned universities further boosts our shared influence and available resources.


Program Activities

Committees

  • Reviewed new metadata fields and potential data dictionary
  • Reviewed workgroup activities
  • Ended with a group metadata cleanup session
  • No meeting in December.
  • New Program & Outreach hire, Colleen Wilson, shared what she's been working on and outlined upcoming plans. She will join as an ongoing committee member.
  • Next meeting will be Tuesday, January 28, 2025.
  • Set guidelines for cross-BTAA meetings to take place between: 11am and 3pm (central)
  • Planned agenda for next program team meeting to focus on new member introductions

Workgroups

  • Drafted final report for review.
  • Plan is to complete this phase by the end of January, allowing us to begin the next phase in February.
  • MARC to GeoBTAA Metadata Crosswalk: Mapped GeoBTAA fields to MARC fields but needs to reverse the process to ensure all MARC fields are accounted for.
  • Next Steps: Share the crosswalk in an accessible format and create a new sheet for maps metadata, including new fields for series names, spatial resolution, and tags.
  • Drafted a new survey to explore tiered service models and compensation practices among BTAA-GIN members and beyond, focusing on service definitions, tier structures, and staffing. The plan is to share a revised draft with the larger program team in January.

BTAA Geoportal

Analytics Statistics

December 2024 by the numbers

  • Visitors: 4,800
  • Visits: 5,366
  • Downloads: 167
  • Visits with download: 3.11%
  • Outlinks: 1136
  • Visits with outlink: 21.17%
  • Num. searches: 813
  • Search keywords: 356
  • Pageviews: 12,259

Unique visitors by month

More stats

See full statistics on our Analytics Dashboard

What Users are Looking for

  • Top Google searches leading to the Geoportal

    1. ohio school district map
    2. outagamie county gis
    3. south bend city limits
    4. btaa geoportal
    5. nj wetlands map
    6. maryland tax maps
    7. madison wi zoning map
    8. evansville city limits
    9. baltimore city salaries
    10. aerial photographs wisconsin

  • Top internal keyword searches

    1. sanborn
    2. deer
    3. native american
    4. wildlife
    5. missouri
    6. michigan
    7. indiana
    8. National Park
    9. matthaei
    10. mcconnellsburgh


Collections

Total records as of January 1, 2025: 101,532

Records January 1 2025
BTAA Geoportal Records from 2016 to January 1, 2025

November Harvesting Activities

Task Records added Records retired
New records for LandScan HD and LandScan USA 50 0
Minnesota Geospatial Commons, December 2024 8 39
2024-12-03 Scan ArcGIS Hubs 49 50
2024-12-10 Scan ArcGIS Hubs 0 0
2024-12-17 Scan ArcGIS Hubs 245 52
2024-12-24 Scan ArcGIS Hubs 849 0
PASDA, Q4 2024 0 667
LandScan, Annual reharvest 2024 2 0
CKAN portals, scan Q4 2024 0 0
Humanitarian Data Exchange, Reharvest Dec 2024 414 0
TOTALS 1617 808

Development

Ongoing Bot Traffic Issues

Like many other rich-content websites, the Geoportal has lately been overwhelmed by AI bots, causing major slowdowns and outages. We have blocked traffic from certain regions, but the problem persists globally. A stronger security system, like a web application firewall, is a top priority for 2025.

Improved Data Organization

Our introduction of stored assets complicated our established workflow for adding links, such as downloads, supplemental metadata, and external website addresses. To improve our metadata management, we overhauled our GBL Admin database to migrate these links into a separate table. In addition to simplifying our descriptive metadata workflow, this separation allows us to use structured fields to describe the links.

Work In-progress

  • Implementing data dictionaries.
  • Preparing for necessary server and framework updates in early 2025.

More development details

Read the most recent development report for more details

Next Steps

  • Kickoff the BTAA GIS Conference planning group.
  • Sunset the Geodata Pilot Working Group and charge one for the next phase.
  • Provide a Technology overview training for new Team Members.
  • Prepare a survey of GIN members on current service models.