Athens County
Cooperative Land Administration and
Information Mapping system
April 30, 2000
Athens County Commissioners
15 South Court Street, 2nd Floor
Athens, Ohio 45701
RE: Monthly GIS Progress Report
Commissioners:
I will submit our first GIS Operations budget request to the
Commissioners in May. Also in May, I will meet with an architect
about our planned GIS facility addition.
The following factors for successful GIS implementation were
documented in the URISA Journal, Volume 12, Number 1, Winter, 2000:
"Overall, researchers have concluded that successful implementation
of a GIS in local government is dependent on a number of well-
documented factors. They include:
Evaluation of user needs;
Long-term upper management commitment to the project;
Sufficient allocation of resources;
Adequate staffing;
Timely and sufficient training;
Someone, called a "GIS champion," who will shepherd the project
from acquision to use; and
Organizational communication or diffusion to smooth the
transition to full utilization"
These factors, noted by leading experts, should be continually
reviewed and applied to our GIS project. In upcoming GIS progress
reports, I will apply each of these factors to our GIS project
development as an evaluation of our efforts.
Our ILGARD parcel data conversion is progressing:
Athens City: Line work is being completed and we should be adding
parcel identification numbers by mid-May.
York Township: all scanned images are registered and rectified.
The students are digitizing them now. The City of Nelsonville work
completed earlier for the E-911 project will be appended to the
township data once the line work is done.
Trimble Township: We are currently adjusting the line work that
GeoOne did. We will probably run through our fitting process
3 times to bring the sa me accuracy and consistency as our other
data.
Alexander Township: All sections have been scanned and we will
begin line work soon.
Web Data: We recently purchased new tracking software for our web
pages. Dan Murphy and J.B. will be adding this to our web page.
This will allow us to track not only the hits, but also where they
came from and how they found us. We plan to make some changes to
our site, add additional townships, and update the help menus.
Hardware: ILGARD decided to use the hardware money in our contract
to help purchase 4 new workstations for our project. These will
allow us to run ArcInfo 8 and keep the students running without
system delays. They are purchasing a web server and map server out
of another contract and will be able to run our web data on that
system. It should improve the web site performance immensely.
ILGARD will host a presentation of the Lucas County GIS on Friday
May 12. Any one interested in attending should contact J.B. Hoy.
J.B. and I may visit the Lucus County facility this summer.
Chuck Hammer and I discussed our Athens County GIS on the WAIS radio
talk show. The show was well received and several good questions were
asked. I have received good feedback about the show.
Greg Roush, GIS Coordinator for Ross County has requested to see our
recently implemented E-911 mapping application. Doug Bentley will
host his visit late this month.
John Branner and I will meet with several southeastern Ohio counties
GIS representatives next month to discuss opportunities available as
GIS/transportation applications.
Chuck Hammer will make a presentation next month to the Athens County
Township Trustees at their annual meeting with the County Engineer
about GIS projects underway in the Athens County Health Department.
Bob Eichenberg is setting up a GIS /GPS demonstration in June for the
Athens County Regional Planning Commission.
We are planning our high profile GIS show for September 20th at the
O.U. Inn Ballroom. We will hold planning sessions immediately
following the next two GIS Steering Committee meetings. The plan is
to invite the commissioners, city council members, chamber of commerce
officials, utility company representatives, elected officials, O.U.
administrators, and members of the news media. Please mark your
calendars for this show.
Our next GIS Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for May 18, 2000
at 10:00 a.m. in the Emergency Communications Office located at
13 West Washington Street. A tour of the E-911 facility and new
mapping system is scheduled.
I attended an ESRI Digital Nation seminar in Columbus. ArcIMS 3
should be released by June. Geographic Data Technology, Inc.
previewed their Dynamap street network products for geocoding
nationwide, Compaq Corporation demonstrated their laptop comp uters,
and Space Imaging Corporation presented their satellite imaging
products.
An enclosed article provides a summary of a nationwide survey of
counties using GIS. The last paragraph quoting Allen Armstrong, GIS
Manager from Gallatin County in Montana, sums up the use of GIS pretty
well. "Once you start down the road using GI S, be prepared to
continually fund the effort and embrace the technology. Be prepared
to let GIS change the way you think and conduct business."
A second article enclosed describes the NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour
February 2000 mission of 3-d mapping 80% of the surface of the Earth,
is very interesting.
I will attend the URISA GIS Annual Conference in August.
Thank you for allowing me to coordinate this important aspect of
Athens County's future, and for your usual cooperation.
Archie Stanley
GIS Coordinator
555 East State Street
Athens, Ohio 45701
Phone (740) 593-5514
Fax (740) 592-4616
astanley@frognet.net