Local-e e-Mapping project strikes gold in Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards 2004

The Local-e e-Mapping project won an award in the "'Environment and Community" category at the inaugural Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards on 25 November 2004. A joint effort between the NSW Local Government and Shires Association (LGSA), Social Change Online and Sinclair Knight Mertz, this project is the first of its kind to provide Web Map publishing capabilities to more than 50 local councils in regional and rural NSW.

Terry Versace (SCO), Allison Hornery (Local-e) & Maurits Van der Vlugt (SKM) with the Award.

The Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards is the brain-child of two peak organizations: the Australian Spatial Information Business Association (ASIBA) and the Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI). These awards aim to recognize outstanding achievements in the sector and to promote the important role of spatial information in the world.

"This award shows the important role that Mapping plays in empowering local communities," says Terry Versace, COO of Social Change Online. "A key feature of this project is that it provides powerful Web Mapping tools that non-specialist staff can use. For example, non-GIS users are able to upload interactive maps of facilities and publish information online with minimal training. Yet the tool has many advanced features that can leverage existing GIS capabilities within each Council."

The project is one of the first in Australia to comply with new OpenGIS Web Mapping standards on such a large scale. The system allows Councils to provide standards based map data to the broader community and, conversely, enables them to hook into map data provided by other organizations.

Cheyne Hughes, Web Administrator of Port Stephens Council and a keen user of the system, concurs, "What e-Mapping means for our customers is a comprehensive visual map replacing paragraphs of descriptive text. The creation of maps from a Web Administrator's point of view is as easy as entering the address of a property - the system takes care of the rest!"

"e-Mapping also gives us the ability to upload layers of data from our GIS system, enabling us to provide accurate information on water quality readings, bushfire prone land, acid sulfate soils and much more by uploading a flat file to the data storage facility," Cheyne adds. "The development of an on-line mapping facility has been on our 'wish list' for some time. I appreciate the effort the SCO team has 'put in' to get us to where we are today."

To see the system in operation, go to the Port Stephens Council site http://portstephens.local-e.nsw.gov.au.

For more information about the Local-e e-Mapping project, contact Terry Versace on (02) 9692 5100 or go to the Local-e project website http://local-e.nsw.gov.au/

For more information about the awards, visit www.asiba.com.au or www.spatialsciences.org.au.