CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Context

Over the last decade, government departments and agencies involved in the production, use, and dissemination of geographic data have witnessed profound change in the nature and importance of their work. Across all sectors of Canadian society, it is becoming increasingly recognized that basic geographic information serves as a direct input to almost every aspect of logistics planning, investment decisions, public policy, citizen mobility and awareness, health research, resource management, emergency preparedness, etc. The rapid development and widespread proliferation of distributed computing and the Internet have only increased the demand for access to a variety of geographic data, including data produced by government. User applications are becoming more sophisticated - spanning political jurisdictions, requiring several types of data as input, and delivered over complex networks of databases.

Government geographic data serves as an input to informed decision-making across all sectors of Canadian society

However, the data dissemination and licensing frameworks used to promote, extend and support the use of government geographic data generally have not kept pace with developments in technical capacity and growing user demands. Many data clients point to the lack of an integrated and consistent framework for the dissemination and licensing of government geographic data as inimical to the goal of promoting its wider use and benefit. The variety of terms governing use, fee structures, acknowledgment of source and termination clauses used across government makes it difficult to optimize the use of government geographic data. There is some evidence that these conditions are beginning to drive potential data clients to duplicate data collection efforts or seek other providers rather than access comparable government holdings.

The Canadian experience in this domain is not unique, as the shift from analog to digital maintenance and distribution of geographic data is global in scope. Efforts to grapple with these challenges are occurring in several governmental contexts, and there is a growing body of knowledge on how governments can respond. In the United States, the National Research Council is currently engaged in a comprehensive review of government geographic data licensing activities. The main objectives of this work are to propose licensing models that meet the spatial-data needs of government and its stakeholders, and to make recommendations to government on actions that will balance the interests of all parties affected by licensing of spatial data and services to and from government. [1]

Within the European context, the Global Monitoring of Environment and Security (GMES) initiative aims at the establishment by 2008 of a European capacity for the provision and use of operational information for monitoring and management of the environment and for civil security. An important part of GMES lies in ensuring that the wide variety of information summarized in the ‘data offer’ can be exploited in a coherent fashion through the use of an effective policy and business framework guiding the progressive build of this infrastructure. [2]

In recent years in Canada, increasing thought has been given to questions on the overall framework and approach for government involvement in geographic data. Most of these discussions attempt to address how government data dissemination policies can be used to promote social and economic development, democratic values of transparency, citizen engagement, cultural identity and wider knowledge of Canada and its place in the world.

One forum in which such issues have been discussed at length is the GeoConnections Program. [3] This federally funded five-year program has been designed to draw widely from the expertise in the use of geographic data across the country. Its Management Board is comprised of representatives from the federal, provincial/territorial, private sector, non-profit, and academic sectors. The GeoConnections Policy Advisory Node (the “Policy Node”) is a group of individuals working on behalf of the GeoConnections Program to advance discussions of policy related issues. In recent years, the Policy Node has undertaken significant discussion pertaining to the roles of government in geographic data production and dissemination, commissioning the widely read KPMG Study on Canadian Geospatial Data Policy [4] , producing an action Plan on the advancement of policy discussions, and developing a set of guiding principles for the creation, maintenance and distribution of core government geographic data sets.

GeoConnections' response targets and supports the development of an integrated government data dissemination framework

Government geographic data dissemination and licensing practices have been a common theme in the Policy Node discussions, as collectively, these practices have a significant impact in determining the overall utility of government geographic data sets. Their importance is superseded only by the content specifications, technical standards, and financing/partnership models used to produce the data itself. As a result, the Policy Node began to focus its efforts on data licensing practices. Early efforts concentrated on the evaluation of specific licence agreements. Over time, increasing attention has been given to the development of an integrated data dissemination and licensing framework suitable for use by government agencies involved in the production, use or dissemination of geographic data.

1.2 Communities of Practice in Government Geographic Data Licensing

From the outset, it has been clear that progress on the development of an integrated framework for government geographic data dissemination and licensing practices could only be made if the effort were to draw on the advice and support of government professionals involved in this domain. It has always been abundantly evident that government practitioners had to be involved, that their insight on the merits of an integrated framework for the dissemination and licensing of government geographic data and the content of such a framework be sought so as to ensure its relevancy, usefulness, adoption and use. In the absence of such direct discussions, there would be insufficient support to see the framework evaluated in an objective manner, nor would there be sufficient effort to explore the feasibility of its implementation.

A further rationale for forming a community of discussion on licensing practices is that there is a very ready admission that there is a lot of similarity between the issues faced by licensing practitioners and the approaches used to address them. However, despite the commonality of issues, many feel they are working in a vacuum, unable to gauge the effectiveness of their practices. They feel they have little opportunity to discuss issues and approaches that would benefit their own work while increasing the overall utility of government produced geographic data to users outside their current client base.

Communities of practise encouraging and sustaining broad discussion on dissemination

In order to address the need for wider discussion on an integrated framework for government geographic data dissemination and licensing, the Policy Node was asked to facilitate the start-up and early work of a community of practice on this subject. At the federal level, a Working Group on Licensing Practices has been formed under the Inter-Agency Committee on Geomatics, a group of federal departments and agencies with heavy involvement in the production, use, or dissemination of government geographic data. A similar community has been formed at the national level through the Canadian Council on Geomatics (CCOG), a provincial/territorial/federal coordinating body on government geographic data. These communities are seen as enabling a broader discussion of data dissemination and licensing practices for the benefit of all participants, and a principal input for the material presented in this Dissemination of Government Geographic Data in Canada - Guide to Best Practices.

1.3 Objectives of The Dissemination of Government Geographic Data in Canada - Guide to Best Practices.

The principal objective of The Dissemination of Government Geographic Data in Canada - Guide to Best Practices is to serve as a continually maintained core document detailing progress in the development of an integrated framework for the dissemination and licensing of government geographic data. The Guide to Best Practices will reflect the current understanding of that framework, issues that need to be resolved, and provide an assessment of these discussions from the perspectives of the licensing practitioner and data user. More specifically, the Guide is intended to:

provide an overview of the rationale and structure of data dissemination policies and supporting data licensing agreements commonly used in Canada;
set out an integrated framework for the various distribution models and their associated licence agreements such that each model and licence agreement builds on common structures, their inter-relationships are clear, and guidelines are provided to assist licensing practitioners in selecting the most appropriate model and licence for a given government geographic data disseminiation initiative;
identify standard licence components that should be used to support the dissemination of government geographic data;
present and recommend clear, concise, and commonly used clauses that can be used in licence agreements;
provide model licence templates that are consistent with the overall integrated framework;
facilitate discussions and comments on the utility of the integrated framework for government geographic data dissemination and licensing from the perspective of the government licensing practitioner and data user; and
provide an authoritative bibliography of quality source information to facilitate further review and progress on the subject of government geographic data dissemination and licensing practices.

By encouraging and sustaining broad discussion on dissemination policy and licensing practices at a common table, it will be possible to consolidate within this Guide the many solid practices in use across government, for the benefit of all participants. A common approach to what is a common concern will result in best practices that are more readily identified, shared, and adopted as standard. Furthermore, the administrative and legal costs associated with discussion of licensing issues, review of and reaction to case law, and the periodic refinement of the integrated dissemination and licensing framework will also be reduced as a result of this process. The following chapters provide a synthesis of the discussions in fulfillment of these objectives.