GIS Data and Church

[RossEvans]

How we can request units maps from Church HQ in PDF format (for official Church use?). It came by E-mail?

I don't have a phone extension to give you, but see this post.

[bplewe-p40]

Since real GIS (e.g., ESRI) is not likely to proliferate to Ward Clerks very soon, here are a couple things I would see as more feasible (than sending out raw data) in the foreseeable future:

1. A web-based application (within LUWS) for developing ward/stake split proposals, combining existing boundaries, geocoded members (with ability to select out individual groups), and such. This appears to be the most common thing that members are using GIS for. Not a terribly difficult application: draw a boundary, and it automatically tallies the priesthood/primary/RS/YM/YW/etc. for you.

2. A web-based application (within LUWS?) for unit leaders to revise (or suggest corrections to) boundary data, especially outside US/Can/Europe. Due to the lack of high-quality basemap data, accurate boundaries have been very problematic in developing nations. The new meetinghouse locator has a very simple version of this, in which anyone can submit a suggestion for a more accurate building location.

3. GIS in Area offices, for decentralizing a lot of the activities done by the HQ GIS now, especially now that a greater degree of supervision is being consolidated at the area level. This would include boundary management, facilities management, real estate, etc.

The Church GIS people have hinted to me that #2 is a much higher priority than #3, due to the supposed lack of skilled LDS GIS people outside US/Can/Europe. I have not heard of any activity on #1, but it seems like an obvious app: should we suggest it to the Wiki projects?

[russellhltn]

Seems to me that Google Earth is more accessible to the average leader/clerk than GIS. To the extent that GE can be expanded to cover the needs, I'd focus on that. Either that, or use of GIS simplified to be more in reach.

[RossEvans]

Since real GIS (e.g., ESRI) is not likely to proliferate to Ward Clerks very soon, here are a couple things I would see as more feasible (than sending out raw data) in the foreseeable future: ...

The Church GIS people have hinted to me that #2 is a much higher priority than #3, due to the supposed lack of skilled LDS GIS people outside US/Can/Europe. I have not heard of any activity on #1, but it seems like an obvious app: should we suggest it to the Wiki projects?

What I have seen discussed on the record are applications to publish boundaries and member-mapping. The former is technically easy. Accurate geocoding of member addresses, with local clerks correcting errors, is inherently a prerequisite for the latter, and I suspect that is the most difficult part of those projects. I hope there are decent tools, including address validation and standardization, being developed to support such geocoding.

These applications, except for the clerks' involvement in geocoding, seem to be for general membership use. I have not seen pubic announcement of any new tools designed for stake and area leaders, which is what your remarks focus on. Your intelligence may be better than anything known in this forum.

Conceptually, I think the difficult part of your item #1, an online boundary-development tool, would be developing a sophisticated interface for drawing boundaries accurately. A UI can let users manually trace boundaries, but that is not as precise as importing professionally created base map layers and manipulating them as building blocks. And the what-if methodology for developing boundaries typically involves drawing boundaries for many small subdivisions and combining them to form units. To build all that functionality would be to build much of the functionality of a GIS system. Once geocoded member data and precise boundaries are in place, I think, it would be quite doable to program the point-in-polygon logic to tally the demograpics for stake leaders.

My understanding is that our stake just uses commercial GIS software in its boundary work, I don't know what application that is or who bought it. I work at the ward level, and for some purposes I use a GIS application that I happen to own. For other purposes, such as publishing maps to various ward leaders (possibly all members later), we use Google Earth or Google Maps, driven by custom scripts. I suspect that even after the Church releases its new mapping applications there still will be demand for custom local apps not covered by the general release.