GeoPortal efforts 2012 and beyond
The HIGICC members have long discussed the need for a Portal of some sort in the Hawaii and US Pacific territories. Small steps have been taken in the past. These include a section of Portal related question in the 2010 survey that went out to the entire HIGICC mailing list as part of the Imagery Inventory Business plan.
Following that, the Portal topic recieved the most votes for the "Unconference" during the HIGICC State GIS conference March 2012. The discuss was broad and well attended. The summary of the discussion follows:
"It is clear from discussions that currently several GeoPortals of various types exist in Hawaii and the Pacific. It is important to note that many of the existing sites have a dedicated purpose and funding mechanisms. The group quickly focused in on not creating a centralized mega portal, rather a search site that has indexes of exisiting data (data discovery). The data can then be maintained / stewardship and responsibility with the authoritative source yet be discoverable and shared to a degree allowed by the managing organization. This method would greatly reduce the amount of effort and funding needed to develop and maintain a GeoPortal in Hawaii. The State of Hawaii GIS does not currently have a true portal, but is interested in developing one. They too could use the discovery site as a way to access information. There was discussion on which organization should be the caretaker of the discovery site. The HIGICC was thought to be a logical organization to undertake that role, The UH system was also considered. Funding mechanisms were discuss and ranged from grants to contributions from participants. There was also discussion of geographic extent. Many of the groups have interest, research, and work greater than the State of Hawaii boundary. The people present represented a broad set of organization and had much experience and knowledge on the topic. They are interested in further discussions. No further action was put forth at this time."
On March 16th the next round of discussion takes place at the State Office Tower, Honolulu, HI.
Resources that are a main part of the discussion are;