Rationale | Goals | Subtopics | Outputs

Facilitated Work Session –

Rationale:

• During interviews it was apparent that there is a large diversity in the definition of "data sharing"
  • Data sharing is required for DFAM
  • Data sharing means DEA agreements
  • Data sharing means electronic submissions
  • Data sharing means licensees passing spatial data back and forth
  • Data sharing means the Northwest Data Sharing Partnership approach
  • Data sharing means access to LRDW
  • Etc
• Regarding data sharing a commonly expressed issue was a lack of understanding, clearly the business benefit of sharing data
• So, it is not clear what it means and it is not clear what the benefit is but there is a significant amount of activity and talk about the subject

Goal: Education and awareness

• Through 3 balanced presentations attendees will learn about current data sharing initiatives from a business perspective about business drivers and value equations
• The presentations are not intended to define data sharing broadly but just to provide operational perspective for attendees to apply to their own organizations and also to set the stage for workshop brainstorming

• Each breakout table will be tasked to identify 3 significant opportunities and 3 barriers to achieving value through data sharing and report those to the larger group
• A proven facilitated process, useful for the dialogue and end results we want to achieve in our workshop is called "Courtyard Café".
• The output and results of this dialogue will be submitted to the CIO Forum and will be used as a basis for change and evolution of data sharing in the forest sector

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1. Opportunities and barriers for data sharing

• Describe some "kind" of data sharing that you think would be of value to your organization?
• What data would be valuable to share? Share with who?
• Identify the "value" or benefit of the proposed data sharing?
• Are there barriers that would prevent you from achieving value from data sharing?
• What can be done to overcome those barriers?
• Develop a priorized list (point form) of points you want make
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

2. Current initiatives that are forms of data sharing (partnerships, consortiums, DEA, Base mapping, LRDW etc)

• Do you participate in any data sharing initiatives? List which ones.
• Do you get value from participation?
• Can you quantify the value?
• How could you get more value?
• Are there initiatives that you could participate in but choose not to?
• Why not?
• List specific problems areas or give examples.
• What could be done to overcome these issues?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make.
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

3. Data – quality, integrity, standards

• Identify issues with the data being submitted
• Is the correct data being requested?
• Do you understand how data is being used?
• Is it possible to reduce quantity of data being submitted?
• Is the quality of the data being submitted appropriate?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make.
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

4. Future implementation/evolution of data sharing initiatives between stakeholders

• As opportunities for improving our business through potential data sharing initiatives among licensees, among industry and government or possibly on a broader scale with other players (eg. Oil & Gas, First Nations, etc) evolve, could we (collectively) develop a better process to design requirements, standards and processes that would result in more value to your organization?
• What are some critical components of an improved process?
• How could communication and coordination of changes be improved?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

5. Out of the box - brainstorm

• Discuss other aspects of data sharing which are not properly covered by other sub-topic areas
• How can industry and government both improve their business through some form of data sharing?
• Are we missing opportunities?
• What barriers need to be overcome?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

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Output from breakout groups – Courtyard Café

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 1 - Opportunities and barriers for data sharing
Dan Battistella - Group 1 – 2 charts

• LRDW delivers data in non-native format
• Needs geodatabase/SDE
• Cost
• Questions around intellectual property
• Access questions
• Cost for data (base data)
• TRIM / photos / orthophotos
• FREE
• Cost for hosting data
• Coordination of data requests/acquisition
• Photo / orthos
• Working well inside government, not well outside
• Data reliability questions
• Many "underground" data sharing groups operating outside LRDW
• LRDW concept is a good one
• Who has the official copy?
• "Data standards" limit new data being available on LRDW. Leads to external use only
• Temporal scales different for same data
• Too much information with no understanding of what it is. Many sound the same but how do they differ?

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 1 - Opportunities and barriers for data sharing
Dan Battistella - Group 2 – 2 charts

• Cadastre data would be valuable to share
• Many $’s required to access information
• OGC is building a system which may overlap – need opportunity to integrate into provincial dataset
• Limited information on what is built
• Umbrella data sharing. agreements or none at all. Many datasets shouldn’t need data sharing agreements
• Why charge for data?
• In other provinces and countries (US), government collected data is free
• Data sharing – TFL data
• Build system to allow spatial oil and gas data to be integrated
• i.e. FTA is limited to pipelines
• Identify risk to allow/not allow certain data types to be shared freely
• Need to know who custodians are

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 1 - Opportunities and barriers for data sharing
 Dan Battistella - Group 3 – 2 charts

• Data privacy concerns around sharing data
• Patriot Act
• Data integrity concerns
• If I supply data, am I responsible for others use of it?
• Competitive advantage to not share data
• Issue today or not?
• Lack of common standards for certain data limit widespread use
• i.e.
• stream classification
• VQO – att
• Attributes and spatial
• Custsodianship?!
• Historical data differences
• Cost to integrate and maintain integrity. Will inv. Business procedures change – for some?
• Cost of data
• C Lots of referrals ost
• data (base) should be free
• integrating data and maintain

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic - Opportunities and barriers for data sharing
 Mark Todd - Group 1 - 1 chart

Barrier – incompatibility between systems

• cost recognition
• confidentiality
• business culture
• lack of leadership and direction
• availability of data (timing)
• lack of collaboration amongst users
• infrastructure ‘systems’

• standardized formats
• examples – fish stream data issues, various formats
• communication of HL strategic goals
• provide access to WFS (web feature service)
• availability of all datasets
• examples - stream classification, WTP, CDC "SARA"
• updates from custodian on data change – change notification
• need remote sensing annually
• Ikonos
• Landsat 5 etc.

• 1. Cost of data
• base data should be free to all
• integration and maintaining data has a cost
• 2. Data standards don’t meet data that is available – too stringent
• leads to black market data sharing
• 3. LRDW – good direction – may need help delivering.
• i.e. just because you have data available it’s not necessarily used. A shoe store that only sells loafers doesn’t help a runner.
• 4. Data Exchange Agreements are not needed any more.
• 5. Who are the custodians and what is their responsibility?
• 6. LRDW – needs to improve for licensee use.

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 1 - Opportunities and barriers for data sharing
Mark Todd - Group 2 – 1 chart

Barriers:

• Need to request base map information
• Data exchange agreements are ‘restrictive’
• Lack of quality with metadata
• Relationships between data users
• Lack of standards for data sets
• Timely response to data requests
• Some custodians not structured to meet role
• Coast vs Interior – issue arise political

Opportunities: Speed up approval process

• Base mapping available to all free
• Streamline data sharing agreements
• More sharing of imagery
• Remote sensing
• Ikonos
• Landsat5
• Spot5
• increased communication amongst users
• data accuracy will increase with data sharing model
• reduction in costs through data sharing

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 2 – Current Initiatives that are forms of data sharing
Dona Stapley - Group 1 – 2 charts

• Need good data to share
• Kootenay and NW partnership
• Too expensive not to
• All Districts have informal data sharing
• Should have one agreement for all data; formal data sharing agreements TRIM etc.
• FSJPP – one set of data, all licensees use it
• Value
• First Nation consultation
• resolution of conflict
• Reasons not to participate:
• TRIM
• Too expensive
• Too much work
• Not much benefit vs cost/effort

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 2 – Current Initiatives that are forms of data sharing
Dona Stapley - Group 2 – 2 charts

• FSJPP
• LRDW
• NW data sharing
• Kootenay
• Informal agreements
• Data sharing is always valuable
• May not be long term agreement/commitment
• Data sharing involves work/time
• Metadata standards
• Downside – could be multiple sets of data
• Value of agreement
• Known data standards
• Best known source
• Collect once
• Encourages common practices, standards, collection methods and distribution
• Encourages data improvements
• Barriers to agree
• Competition/short term players see no benefit

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 2 – Current Initiatives that are forms of data sharing
Dona Stapley - Group 3 - 2 charts

• Kootenay data sharing agreement
• Works well
• Fairly small/good buy-in
• Real need demonstrated
• Formal agreements (i.e. Haida @ QCI)
• Data not necessarily available
• Local agreement
• Informal local agreements
• Solution – free up LRDW data

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 2 – Current Initiatives that are forms of data sharing
Gloria Wills - Group 1 - 1 chart

• NWS move to custodianship support
• Custodianship accountability
• Quality of data
• Timely updates
• Clear process
• Metadata (lower than data set level
)
• Bring local data into corporate dataset
• DEA need to meet industry needs
• Get more than 1 mapsheet at a time
• BEeID – connection to geographic area
• No orphan layers

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 2 – Current Initiatives that are forms of data sharing
Gloria Wills - Group 2 - 1 chart

• LRDW – training, help, how to use?
• How do we get industry to send us updates to data
• How do we get his modeled?
• Share openly TFL data (already happening underground)
• FIA funded data needs to be captured corporately (standards, program management, value)
• More flexibility around modeling, (versioning)

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 2 – Current Initiatives that are forms of data sharing
Gloria Wills - Group 3 - 1 chart

• Come together and produce a long term strategy (not just solve today’s problem)
• Standards should be developed together
• Allow separate layers for different standards
• English names – too technical
• High level categories
• Forestry data
• Roads
• Engineering
• Oil & gas
• LRDW feedback mechanism
• Focus groups
• Good presentations

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 3 – Data – quality, integrity, standards
Nelson Lah - Group 1 - 2 charts

• Data sharing is easy if the parties have it (data)
• Devil is in the details
• No silo, on one builds a systems/data without sharing
• Ownership
• Custodianship
• Private vs public
• Costs
• Everyone wants it – who?
• User-defined attributes
• Add value when sharing
• e.g. 6 fields at the end – user defined
• Trust in data
• Where to find the data, metadata,
• where to look, sources of data
• Data model of data published widely
• e.g. Alberta’s minerals (petroleum - PPDM Public Petroleum Data Model)
• Buy the model so they can effectively use it and build applications
• Create a "minimum" dataset
• Obtaining certain levels of coverage
• e.g. cruise plot – point data
• Appropriate distribution infrastructure to get data to the users
• Info coming into government – is it public record? Access?
• Format for data exchange – based on usage
• e.g. topology, completeness, translation trade-off
• Federal initiative to share data – GDI
• How this fits?
• Why is BC not there yet?
• Using WMS (open) as options
• Licensees sending in FTA/RESULTS have "auto"/implicit data agreements for VRI
• Getting a DEA takes too much effort

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 3 – Data – quality, integrity, standards
Nelson Lah - Group 2 - 2 charts

• Data not collected to standards is not accepted by MoFR etc
• Tolerance levels between various parties (Industry/Government etc.)
• e.g. walking in bush with Garmin 12 GPS vs. good quality
• Quality of data and responsibilities and professional accountabilities
• How do you verify this?
• Who signs that off?
• "Fudging" data to make it fit
• e.g. moving roads to match
• bogus data to match "bogus" data – how do you know what is good data?
• GPS need to be certified
• Orthophotos AQ
• Data ISO?
• ISO means process is in place, doesn’t guarantee quality of data
• FSR and Road Permit – reconcile data
• Other data (e.g. botanical forest products – how do they fit?)
• Standards to be known
• Classify data e.g. accuracy
• Private lot line – accuracy goes up – risks higher
• "lots of strings" attached
• deter signing of agreement
• Don’t have access to First Nations’ areasof interest

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 3 – Data – quality, integrity, standards
Nelson Lah - Group 3 - 1 charts

• Data required on TRIM base doesn’t match with ESF data
• Unmatched scale and accuracy
• Is TRIM good enough or should it be better
• TRIM is a good common standard (base)
• Poor data standards, no provincial standards with OIC stamp
• Number of inventory standards, don’t have digital standards
• Tougher GPS data standards and certification
• External GPS contractors are using "lower" accuracy GPS units and "lower" accuracy as compared to the "high" standards and costs of differential GPS.
• Balance against risks and results based
• Big companies are not the problem, medium and small don’t have $ and economies of scale to provide "good" data
• Perhaps "large" can help
• Standards and common practices
• Balancing 3 corners – quality, costs and schedules
• Focus on one, other 2 values will be compromised
• How far do you go for accuracy
• e.g. is 10 m good enough?
• Not how right you are but how wrong can I be
• Tolerant to risks and $
• Area-based polygon/tenure not matching up with other data
• Private legal survey not put back into systems (Tantalis, ILMB, ILRR)

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 3 – Data – quality, integrity, standards
Dave Andersen - Group 1 - 2 charts

• Data integrity –
• Are we doing enough to ensure integrity?
• Are we doing too much?
• Common data standards
• Are there new standards?
• Metadata must move along with data (and be kept current)
• Who are the data custodians?
• Imagery is susceptible to degradation
• Resolution
• Shifting of imagery
• Where to get information
• More/different communication
• Data does not line up with other data
• Are we willing to pay for quality?
• Correct old data captured via old methods

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 3 – Data – quality, integrity, standards
Dave Andersen - Group 2 - 1 chart

• Clearly defined standards
• Good metadata
• Too much data or sometimes generalized data
• Sometimes standards are too rigid
• Data collection methods meet user needs
• Balance between cost and needs of data
• Collect only what is needed (rather than what has always been done in the past)
• Clearly ID business needs
• Timely updates - LRDW

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 3 – Data – quality, integrity, standards
Dave Andersen - Group 3 - 1 chart

• We need to pay attention to quality, int. and standards to make correct decisions
• Who sets standards?
• Standards need to be followed to get data into LRDW
• Standards consistent with operational requirements
• User input into specs.
• Contact person (Regional) for data being used
• Metadata appropriate for the data
• Feature vs. layers

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 4 – Future implementation/evolution of data sharing initiatives between stakeholders
Alan Newbert - Group 1 - 1 chart

• Oil and gas – data standards
• Oil and gas need to get on
• When impacting forest res, - ESF needs to have info there
• Build systems to communicate with corporate datasets
• Allow access for interested parties
• Data provided for planned and actual activities
• LRDW – Regional authority to direct data users to appropriate data sets
• LRDW – publish update frequency
• Process to update data in LRDW
• Need data standards that address multiple stakeholder’s needs
• e.g. oil and gas ? forestry disturbances or land-base
• data include
• planning phase (planned activities)
• "as-built" activities

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 4 – Future implementation/evolution of data sharing initiatives between stakeholders
Alan Newbert - Group 2 - 1 chart

• New tenures issued – supply package of digital information
• Better information guides to metadata
• Publish update schedule for data
• Expand local data sharing
• Access to users – raw data, not just shape files (geodatabase)

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 4 – Future implementation/evolution of data sharing initiatives between stakeholders
Alan Newbert - Group 3 - 1 chart

• For oil and gas, include a tool similar to the web framework in RESULTS
• View digital submissions as data sharing
• Drop BCeID’s - open the system up
• Corporate dataset to LRDW standards, this dataset feeds to LRDW
• Portal concept
• Best available data in system and flagged as not to LRDW standards

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 4 – Future implementation/evolution of data sharing initiatives between stakeholders
Will Robins - Group 1 - 2 charts

• Cross sector business model
• Inclusion of developers in these kinds of workshops – ES development process
• Better forum setup at front end
• Get the ‘right’ group of people together
• To get the ‘right’ group need commitment from management level to commit resources in place to work together in multi-organization teams
• What are the costs of not participating in development time?
• Important to communicate / show return on investment for participation on timely / regular basis
• Scaling / format to supply info to MOFR is problematic (i.e. not standard)
• Consultation is not complete rep for whole sector:
• How do we better complete inclusion and involvement when so many players?
• Get comms to right people in orgs
• Focus on minimums
• Comm plan
• Consultation / inclusion business and technical staff

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 4 – Future implementation/evolution of data sharing initiatives between stakeholders
Will Robins - Group 2 - 2 charts

• Feedback loop / mechanism
• We (data custodian) received your notice
• Resources to deal with data quality issue in DRDW
• We have fixed
• Clarity of custodianship
• Roles
• Responsibilities
• Work is completed at Regional / local level
• Mechanism of data maintenance for all LRDW layers
• Metadata done at ‘appropriate’ feature level for data sets
• Define / publish database schemas data model
• Change mechanism
• oCustodial role
• Improve understanding of understanding / useage terms
• i.e. custodians, stewards, managers
• build a ‘data ethic’ to promote and ensure data quality
• start with quality ES

Feedback loop
Data ethic

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 4 – Future implementation/evolution of data sharing initiatives between stakeholders
Will Robins - Group 2 - 2 charts

• So much data is being shared, why do we need DEA’s?
• How do licensees get their "better" data into corporate official datasets? Ability to correct mechanism.
• ESF is proven from government side but benefits to industry are less known. Market the benefits
• Work to single business model
• Licensee / government / agencies have invested in own datasets but seldom work together on improving one dataset
• One world data model – convergence is coming and here
• Why DEAs?

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 5 – Outside the box – brainstorm
Mary Lester - Group 1 - 1 chart

• Provide base funding to data custodians so that all mapping is available free to all users
• Access data at the source instead of having files submitted

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Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 5 – Outside the box – brainstorm
Mary Lester - Group 2 - 1 chart

• Data sharing agreements are very bureaucratic, too "lawyer" oriented, not in the spirit of sharing, limiting instead. Don’t be so protective.
• Corporate agreements – not by Division
• Wider availability of new imagery – get maximum value out of it for making good decisions
• Build analysis tools into large datasets
• Timber supply netdown – add as a layer
• Share value-added data
• Wider access to data
• Licensee access to other licensees data
• consultants

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 5 – Outside the box – brainstorm
Jeremey Janzen - Group 1 - 2 charts

• Eliminate or streamline the digital exchange agreements, use more up to date examples
• Central data store w/a WMA
• With data free, are DEA’s really required?
• Only submit a block’s information once for all uses
• TRIM III – entire province at 1:5000 (specific areas – active uses e.g. not a glacier site
• Require Crown Land surveyors to submit their work in an ESF-like format for cadastre update
• Any data on LRDW would have to be electronically submitted, than has all the correct metadata there and accessible

Day 2 – Data Sharing Topic 5 – Outside the box – brainstorm
Jeremey Janzen - Group 2 - 2 charts

• Live read access to LRDW for everyone (i.e. don’t have to download, use own software etc.
• Provide online zoomable viewer
• Those who create separate (locally defined) datasets should look to getting that info into LRDW
• Access other data – federal, international, municipal, regional districts

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