Just what we needed(!?): Lessons from working together with a user-driven, open-source, geospatial tool to archive and share data across contexts

Data governance and sharing become especially challenging when issues traverse sectors and disciplines. This presentation will share lessons and insights from the development and use of a geospatial portal tool that has been developed by First Nations and other groups to address complex environment, community and health concerns. We will introduce the portal as a map-centric, spatially enabled web-based information management system developed and used by various groups around BC and Canada and in this presentation will focus on use by several teams at UNBC in partnership with groups ranging from watershed organisations, school-districts and international partnerships.

Key characteristics of the portal that will be explained: the software is open-source, provides a secure and infinite archive, undergoing constant upgrades and improvements with users, access is specifically set for each submission. Drawing on examples from specific user-groups and partnerships, we will profile lessons and insights from working with this integrative tool including ways that users are harnessing the portals’ ability to host monitoring data, submit content to the Portal and include any digital file format (ex: documents, videos, pictures, hyperlinks, etc.), and search the submissions and information others have shared for viewing.