VASWCD IT Committee
2012 Annual Report
IT Findings and Recommendations
Presented
December 2, 2012 – VASWCD Annual Meeting
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 1
IT Principles 1
Recommendations 2
Recommendations for Current Environment 2
a) Expand the VASWCD website to be a clearinghouse for IT Best Practices. 2
b) Encourage Districts to pursue a strong Internet presence with demonstrations and training whenever possible. 2
c) Share the availability of alternative software products and sponsor trials to evaluate their feasibility. 2
d) Develop share expertise through technology pilot programs. 2
e) Increase training for key IT subjects. 2
f) Use open source or subscription-based software to supplement or replace current administrative software. 2
g) Purchase common software for Districts. 2
Recommendations for the Future Environment 2
a) Maintain a realistic IT funding profile. 3
Projected total yearly cost for District IT funding needs is $350,000 / year. 3
Projected total yearly cost for shared resources for 47 Districts is $500,000 / year. 3
b) Provide a robust, flexible architecture for the future. 3
c) Web-based conservation planning tools should be available to Districts and the general public, possibly as cloud tools. 3
2. Background 3
Agency Relationships 3
Conservation Plans 3
Resource Management Plans 4
3. IT Committee Preliminary Work 4
Creation of Stakeholder and Software Matrix 5
Statewide District IT Survey 5
Investigation of IT Practices at other States 5
IT Pilot Programs and Information Clearinghouse 6
TOOLKIT Alternative -- WorldView Solutions Pilot Project for Fauquier County 6
New Conservation Planning Template 7
4. Developing the Recommendations 7
Recommendations for Current Environment 7
Recommendations for the Future Environment 9
Realistic Funding Profile Summary 11
5. Next Steps 13
a) Establish the IT Committee as a standing committee and continue to work across States and with NACD. 13
b) Initiate actions to address the near term recommendations 13
c) Start the process to address the longer term architectural recommendations 13
Appendices -- Findings 14
Appendix 1. Stakeholder and Software Matrix 15
Appendix 2. VASWCD IT Survey Summary 17
Appendix 3. Executive Summary of State Associations Survey 18
Appendix 4. Alternative tools for conservation planning and guidelines for how to install, use, and manage them 20
VASWCD IT Committee Annual Report ii
December 02, 2012
1. Introduction
Information technology (IT) has become an integral part of the work Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs or Districts) perform. Looking into the future, IT will certainly increase in importance as Districts and agencies increase their utilization of new IT technologies such as GIS, big-data analytics, and social media to inform, advise, and assist communities in their conservation goals. These IT applications are no longer simple applications for creating reports and writing email; they are becoming the tools the staff uses to do their job. Similarly, the data gathered as part of a plan is being used in new ways and combined with other data sets to better understand the results of practices. This data focus raises important questions about privacy and integrity that impact Districts directly.
The Districts across Virginia have had varying experiences adopting IT technology. There is also a changing landscape of IT support and cooperation across our partner organizations at the State and Federal level. The IT committee has been working to better understand the state of IT across Districts and the environment that Districts work in to better prepare for changes in the future. This report presents the findings from our first year as a Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (VASWCD) committee and suggests recommendations and steps that we believe will help Districts improve their IT capacity and advance the state of IT with our partners and customers.
IT Principles
Districts are a special form of government with unique responsibilities and accountability as compared to traditional government bodies. As our committee looked into the use of IT, there were several principles that formed the basis for how IT could and should be used by Districts. These principles helped us to understand the status quo and guide the direction of our recommendations. They are useful for other agencies to understand the motivation for certain recommendations and the associated system level requirements.
a) Districts are autonomous and report to the citizens. District work is driven at the local level and judged by the citizens in the District. Each District makes independent decisions and tries to provide the best value to their local community. The VASWCD helps Districts but does not have any authority over their decisions.
b) Openness and sharing of tools, techniques, and process. A central tenant of a District is to educate the public on the best practices for conservation. We want to share all of the IT technology so that individuals can leverage that expertise to improve their conservation knowledge. This includes the actual applications, training on how to use them, and essential data to drive applications.
c) Privacy of individual plans with secure online access to plans. While the practice of conservation is open, the delivery to specific parcels is private between the District and the landowner. Over time we expect all plans to become digital and there needs to be a secure way to protect the landowner’s privacy.
d) Data must be available for partners to access and to analyze, especially as related to larger conservation initiatives. In the near future, this will be required to understand the effect of conservation practices on the Chesapeake Bay TMDL.
The last two principles demonstrate some of the unique challenges faced by Districts. Namely that privacy must be maintained with individual landowners, while at the same time, that information is very useful for our partner agencies and organizations. Districts have managed to find an appropriate balance over time and that balance must extend across all aspects including IT operations and procedures.
Recommendations
The focus of this report is on recommendations to help the VASWCD and Districts advance their IT capabilities into the future. The committee has divided recommendations into two categories.
Recommendations for Current Environment
The first category addresses changes that can be made to the current environment through an IT committee led action plan. The result of these recommendations will be better information for Districts to enhance their IT operations and efficient use of current technology.
a) Expand the VASWCD website to be a clearinghouse for IT Best Practices.
b) Encourage Districts to pursue a strong Internet presence with demonstrations and training whenever possible.
c) Share the availability of alternative software products and sponsor trials to evaluate their feasibility.
d) Develop share expertise through technology pilot programs.
e) Increase training for key IT subjects.
f) Use open source or subscription-based software to supplement or replace current administrative software.
g) Purchase common software for Districts.
Recommendations for the Future Environment
The second category, addresses changes for the future that are designed to modernize existing tools and prepare for new capabilities that will be required as Districts continue to play a role in looming conservation issues. These recommendations require coordination across partners and stakeholders and are more strategic in nature.
a) Maintain a realistic IT funding profile.
Projected total yearly cost for District IT funding needs is $350,000 / year.
Projected total yearly cost for shared resources for 47 Districts is $500,000 / year.
b) Provide a robust, flexible architecture for the future.
c) Web-based conservation planning tools should be available to Districts and the general public, possibly as cloud tools.
Sections 2, 3 and 4 cover the background work the committee has done to develop these recommendations and some of the work we’ve been doing to prepare to implement them.
2. Background
The VASWCD IT Committee was formed in January 2012. We proposed a mission statement to the VASWCD Executive Committee that was approved in March 2012. That statement includes the following:
1. Provide advice and capabilities for Districts to improve their IT capabilities and maintain a clearinghouse of IT best practices and options across Districts
2. Advise the VASWCD on IT issues and recommendations for systems that meet current and forecasted needs
3. Provide technical expertise when interacting with VASWCD partners
4. Monitor the IT environment that Districts participate in and comment when essential resources are insufficient for Conservation requirements
Some important issues faced by the VASWCD related to IT are summarized below.
Agency Relationships
Districts rely on the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation Planning Desktop Tool (TOOLKIT) program to help create conservation plans and resource management plans. TOOLKIT includes Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Conservation Planning functions that locate farms and calculate acreages for Best Management Practices (BMPs). Almost half of the SWCD offices are co-located with NRCS offices. These Districts use the NRCS computer network, TOOLKIT, and rely on NRCS for Information Technology (IT) support.
Conservation Plans
Conservation plans are required by Virginia's Agricultural BMP (Ag BMP) Tracking Program administered by the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). Districts use the Ag BMP Tracking Program to manage the process of recording and funding BMPs installed in their Districts. The Ag BMP Tracking Program was developed in the 1980s. However, development of Ag BMP Tracking Program software functions has not kept pace with the evolution and expansion of BMPs. Features and functions enabling Districts to retrieve data for local reporting purposes have not been implemented in the software. The program funding has been inconsistent and there is a need for more systematic training of new employees and existing users.
Resource Management Plans
Resource Management Plans (RMPs) are comprehensive agricultural conservation management plans. They are designed to meet the load allocation requirements of any total maximum daily load (TMDL) for benthic, bacteria, nutrient or sediment impairments. Similar to other conservation plans, IT support is required for assessments, plan development, practice design and implementation, tracking, periodic inspections and reporting to the state agency. RMPs provide safe harbor from state and federal regulations as long as plans are up to date,pass periodic inspections, and are renewed at expiration periods.
In many SWCD offices there is only one NRCS computer for several employees to perform conservation planning/ engineering/ mapping/ soil loss calculations and reporting. NRCS will allow TOOLKIT only on NRCS computers because of stringent Federal guidelines for computer security. Districts not co-located with NRCS have either gone to county networks or worked with private companies for computer needs. Since they are no longer connected to the NRCS network, most of these Districts are reporting and developing conservation plans using their own resources and alternatives to TOOLKIT.
3. IT Committee Preliminary Work
The IT Committee followed a systems approach to create a baseline of information that helped inform our recommendations. This is a more formal process that starts with analysis to understand a problem. The process followed four phases as shown in the following diagram.
The results of specific tasks are included in the following sections. All of these tasks informed the recommendation and action plan for the future.
Creation of Stakeholder and Software Matrix
One of the first activities of the IT Committee was to create a matrix of software and stakeholders who, along with SWCDs, use IT to accomplish the work of the Districts. The Committee gathered this information from Committee members' District staff.. The matrix is useful for quickly identifying the types of work done by Districts and how IT systems intersect with District staff, customers, and partners. See Appendix 1 for the matrix results
Statewide District IT Survey
In the spring of 2012, the IT Committee created an on-line survey and collected data from Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Districts statewide for the purposes of determining common IT practices that exist among Districts, defining issues affecting Districts’ abilities to perform their duties, and making recommendations to the VASWCD. 37 of Virginia’s 47 Districts responded to the survey: 57% listed themselves as rural, 38% as mixed urban-rural and 5% as urban-suburban.
It was found that less than 25% of Districts had computers that were utilizing up to date software and hardware, advanced backup systems, had adequate peer to peer sharing capability, had adequate security plans, or paid third party technical support. The average amount spent by Districts in 2012 on IT (hardware, software, internet service, technical support) is $2918 or $865 per District employee.
Among specific problems and concerns identified:
a) Costly Conservation Planning Applications and computer resources are provided to a majority of Districts by NRCS. Over 40% of Districts expect that in the near future they will not have access to NRCS servers and resources due to relocation of offices and personnel;
b) The BMP program is inflexible, does not provide publicly accessible data for localities and stakeholders to use for reporting, and has no dedicated technical support;
c) Over half the Districts reported that their computers were operating with Windows XP which does not work with new Microsoft products and must be updated to Windows 7or 8. Updating operating systems may require updating hardware;
d) Data suggests a need for an IT security best practices document at the VASWCD level, including updating virus protection, backing up files, and protecting personal information;
e) IT applications, from software installation and support, hardware support and networking, and backing up vital information and systems, require a level of technical expertise and time not widely available to District staff. See Appendix 2 for detailed survey results.
Investigation of IT Practices at other States
In addition to the statewide survey, the IT Committee asked other regions for information on how different states were dealing with IT issues. Eight State Associations from across the US responded. We were surprised at the diversity of IT funding and support across the nation, combined with the similarity of concerns over the future direction of IT tools and processes. See Appendix 3 for an executive summary of the results.
IT Pilot Programs and Information Clearinghouse
As part of our ongoing mission, the IT Committee has engaged in endorsing and supporting pilot studies of new technology, practices, and software tools. Notable is a pilot study for the John Marshall SWCD (JMSWCD) and Fauquier County to evaluate an enhanced software suite recently delivered to Lancaster County PA by WorldView Solutions.