Wisconsin Geospatial News

U.S. Department of Homeland Security needs your feedback

In cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) recently put together two surveys, and they need your help.

Over the past several years, many of you participated in a federal program called the Homeland Security Infrastructure Program (HSIP) Partnership program. This program asked state and local agencies to provide the federal government with the locations of seven critical infrastructure datasets within your jurisdiction. The data were then enhanced and provided back to users in Wisconsin. For those with access, these data can be downloaded from the WI-Esponder Web site.

The federal government is now looking to develop a more comprehensive HSIP maintenance program that will include many more datasets. The first survey seeks your opinions and thoughts on the HSIP program. 

The second survey relates to the Homeland Security Geospatial Data Model (GDM).  The GDM is not new, but it is not widely used or understood either, thus the review.  This survey is an effort to better understand federal, state and local government data modeling needs.

Even if you are not aware of the HSIP program or the GDM, I encourage you to take the survey and answer as many questions as you can. Your inputs are valuable and will help shape the HSIP program and GDM efforts. Each survey contains less than 20 questions, and should take you no more than 15-20 minutes each to complete.

HSIP Data Survey:   http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W8D6FF6

Geospatial Data Model Survey:   http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q6HLD39

The requested deadline for completing both surveys is Wednesday, January 6, 2010.