ACTive ALIA

An information management roadmap for Geoscience Australia - vision meets reality

Presentation at ALIA ACTive/AGLIN information sharing session no 4, 29 June 2005

Paul Trezise, Geoscience Australia, June 2005

Some necessary background...

About Geoscience Australia

• Australian government agency for geoscience research and information
• 600 staff, annual budget $120m
• Established in 2001 from merger of national geological and mapping agencies
• Information rich

Our vision

• To be a world leader in the generation and delivery of national geoscience information and knowledge.
• Our research, information and advice is critical to well-informed decisions on the development of resources, the management of the environment, and the safety and wellbeing of the community.

Our information assets

• Huge quantities of scientific data mainly in digital form (>600Tb)
• Our Geoscience Library collection and official records
• Publications and other value-added information products including the GA websites
• Our knowledge (both tacit and explicit) such as procedures and techniques, research results etc

Why the need for an information management roadmap?

• Organisational silos
• Realisation that information needed to be treated as a corporate asset
• Changing customer profile and demands
• Consistent compliance with legislation and government policy
• Improved efficiency

What we did about it

• Appointment of CIO
• Consolidation of all corporate 'information management' functions - library, records management, web, distribution, databases, data policy...
• Adoption of 'federated' IM model
• Development of an IM strategic plan

The information management strategic plan

The plan in a nutshell...

• Where we are now?
  
  • What things are we doing well?
  • What are the key Issues?
• Where we want to be?
• How we will get there?
  
  • Key enablers
  • The blueprint for change (goals and strategies)

Where we are now - key issues

• Discoverability of GA's information
• Access to GA's information
• IM skills
• IM as a standard business practice
• Preservation and management of archives
• Links to government IM initiatives
• IM/IS/IT governance
• IM priority setting
• Integration and interoperability

Where we want to be

Our vision for IM is that Geoscience Australia's information and knowledge resource is recognised as its key strategic business asset and is:

• generated and managed for the long term;
• assured to a quality that matches stakeholder requirements;
• easily discoverable;
• readily and flexibly accessible; and
• designed to be interoperable with other resources.

The roadmap for change

Some key initiatives...

• Enterprise architecture
• New regime for corporate co-ordination and prioritisation of IM projects
• Standards engagement

So what's different anyway?

• A vision and a roadmap for change
• Linking IM/IS/IT to business strategy - the enterprise architecture approach
• Formalising the 'federated model'
• Holistic, visible, prioritised...
• Clear responsibility for implementation
• Metrics - success or failure visible

Vision meets reality

Two years on...

What we've achieved so far...

• Visibly progressed along the roadmap
• Better external engagement
• Enterprise architecture painting the big picture
• Geospatial standards engagement
• Major IM improvement projects underway
• Measurement framework in place
• Third edition in progress

Our EA capability model

The challenges

• Resources to match the rhetoric
• Keeping the federated model afloat
• Curbing the impatience factor
• Getting IM professionals from differing backgrounds to collaborate
• Measuring impact of strategy (value)
• Moving from a purely 'data' focus

Lessons learned

• Value of seat at the board table
• Communications a priority - repeated and to multiple audiences
• Balance portfolio of initiatives between strategic and short term (practical)
• Demonstrate incremental progress on big strategic projects
• Get balance right between service provider and policing roles

Thank you