EOM April 2005 > SHARING IN GEOTECHNOLOGIES

Data Sharing Licenses: A Coversation With Cy Smith

Adena Schutzberg
Cy Smith is Oregon’s statewide GIS coordinator. He’s been involved with the development of data sharing agreements with the Open Data Consortium (ODC) and is currently leading the effort for a statewide data sharing license.

Data Sharing: Hot in the US, Hot in Oregon
I asked Smith why it seemed like data sharing was suddenly such a big issue. He suggested that, like certain diseases, perhaps it’s not that it’s a bigger issue than in the past, but simply that it’s being discussed and covered more in the press. In Oregon in particular, however, he noted that data sharing is being pushed by the economy. “No level of government has enough resources to create or manage all the data it needs or might like.” And, he notes, the timing of the data sharing discussion melds well with a proposed geospatial utility, a statewide data warehouse. (The announcement that Plangraphics was developing a business case for the utility came out the day we spoke.)

The statewide data license and the GIS utility are clearly linked in Smith’s mind, though they are not formally or politically linked. The statewide license, he explained, will allow local governments (towns, cities, counties) to share data with the state. “We are not talking about all data,” Smith is quick to point out, “just a narrow focused set.” That set includes most items from the seven Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) framework layers, plus seven more layers identified by the state.

What do the local governments get in return for sharing data with the state? They will gain access to state data, such as centerlines from Oregon DOT. “The data will flow both ways,” says Smith. Local data will be used by state agencies to make decisions about where state services should be provided and where funds should be allocated. The state will assist local governments to fund data development and maintenance. Another benefit: local governments will not be subject to repeated requests from different agencies for data.

Reaching Agreement

If all goes well, Smith’s data sharing license will be signed, sealed and in place as you read this. How did the state get to this point? It started with a small group of city and county representatives, and state stakeholders sitting down together. They began with a kind of straw man, a very broad overarching data sharing vision. (One, Smith later explained, came from work of the Open Data Consortium.) But, that was too broad, the players felt. It went too far, too fast. So the license was narrowed to a more comfortable level, with more modest expectations for all parties. The license is a “bit of a leap of faith” for both sides, says Smith. “We decided we could start small and grow the license.” In time he hopes to include federal agencies in the agreement.

The other thing that needed to grow was trust. In fact, says Smith, when you get down to it, that’s the key to the whole effort. “Every party has to trust every other party. It really doesn’t matter what the final language is in the license, this is about people.”

There is no funding directly connected to the license, and no promise of long-term support. But, of course, the state realizes that neither data sharing nor a statewide GIS utility can happen unless the builders of the data have the resources to create the data in the first place, then maintain it for the long term. For now, the funding is “implied” but not in pocket. The state figures it will cost $200 million to complete an initial build of statewide framework data. Oregon is putting in $30 million and looking to the federal government, private companies, and even local governments to contribute. The best news for the local government participants is that most of that money will trickle down to them, to be used for data creation, hardware and software, training, and other related needs.

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