Since the emphasis is on making Oregon data readily accessible to as many people as possible, only digital data have been specifically targetted for inclusion. However, some sites referenced also have non-digital data, such as aerial photographs, that may be acquired through traditional means.

In most cases the data itself is online, but in some instances where this is not feasible, only the metadata is directly retrievable. If, after viewing the metadata, the user wishes to obtain the actual data, arrangements can usually be made, such as sending the data on a CD-ROM. Whenever possible, a link to the metadata for each dataset has been provided. The trend is toward all data suppliers providing metadata that meets Federal Geographic Data Commission (FGDC) standards, as this encourages and facilitates greater data sharing.

This Web site has evolved from two ongoing efforts in Oregon that strive to improve access to spatial data; the Oregon Geospatial Data Clearinghouse (OGDC), and Virtual Oregon. The OGDC has been in existence for many years, (formerly known as the State Service Center) and is one of the most experienced organizations in the Northwest in dealing with GIS data. Virtual Oregon, on the other hand, is relatively young and represents a new perspective on geographic data. Its vision is to provide online access to geographic data on Oregon, while the physical location of the data is transparent to the user. Thus, to the user, geographic data covering any part of the state would appear to come from one virtual collection of Oregon spatial data.

The Oregon Geospatial Data Clearinghouse is a section of the Information Resource Management Division of Oregon's Department of Administrative Services. Its responsibilities include:

• The development, maintenance, and hosting of Oregon's Digital Spatial Data Library
• Communication of GIS initiatives among local, regional, and state agencies
• Assistance with coordination of GIS activities for Oregon state agencies

A wide variety of human resource and natural resource data are available at its website. Many data themes are online in the spatial data library and may be accessed over the state wide area network (WAN) and the Internet.

Virtual Oregon is a new data coordination center, established in May 2000 at Oregon State University with seed funding from the Northwest Academic Computing Consortium, to:

• archive and distribute environmental and other place-based data on Oregon and associated areas via an innovative web interface;
• identify key data sets that are not yet available to users; and
• facilitate development of statewide standards for archiving, documenting, and disseminating data.

Rather than gathering key representatives and co-locating them in a physical center, Virtual Oregon employs a distributed architecture that occupies multiple locations on the OSU campus. The availability of an excellent campus network infrastructure will make it possible to present users with the illusion of a single, centralized facility. This approach was selected in order to maximize contact with students, faculty, and staff on campus, as well as to provide a much broader range of hours to service interactions with extension agents and other members of OSU's statewide community.

The mission of Virtual Oregon is to:

• provide an efficient service for locating and accessing Oregon environmental and other place-based data.
• make these data fully accessible to educators, researchers, policy making and regulatory agencies, industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and individual citizens.
• facilitate more effective environmental research by developing and managing a comprehensive, accurate and accessible scientific information base.
• provide exciting and marketable training opportunities for OSU students.
• provide a foundation for moving extension and outreach activities beyond their current dependence on paper publications, making it possible for OSU to assume a pioneering role as "the 21st century land grant institution."

Comments? Email crousek@geo.orst.edu

This site jointly sponsored by Virtual Oregon and the Oregon Geospatial Data Clearinghouse with funding provided by the NWACC to Virtual Oregon.
http://virtual-oregon.nacse.org/statewide/about.html