An early version of Geoplatform.gov is available now, housed inside a General Services Administration-owned computer cloud that hosts the government data set repository Data.gov. A final version should be available around October, said Johnston, who is a member of the executive steering committee of the Federal Geographic Data Committee and is leading a crossagency team that is developing the initial version of the geospatial platform.
Johnston envisions the site as a “government wide one-stop shop for access to trusted and nationally consistent geographic data and services.” For agencies, the site will offer a full slate of searchable maps built with authoritative government data, including a trove of metadata describing the maps’ origin and level of detail. That means GIS professionals in one agency could rely on another agency’s maps rather than build their own. Other times they will be able to tweak a map – what Johnston describes as adding a data layer – without duplicating underlying data.
The site will also give private sector and nonprofit Web and mobile developers a single access point for government data sets. “The data will be available instantly over Web services, so people can bring the content into their own GIS systems and build applications with it,” Johnston said. “They will be able to do a lot of things with the data instantly.”
Source: SDI-LAC
