First provincial GIS Portal Toolkit in Western Canada, won award

The Information Services Corporation (ISC) of Saskatchewan was presented with an Award of Excellence at ESRI Canada’s Regional User Conference in Regina earlier today. ISC is the provincial Crown Corporation responsible for the administration of land titles, survey and personal property registries, as well as related geographic information and mapping systems in Saskatchewan. Tim Walker, Prairies Regional Manager for ESRI Canada presented the Award to recognize ISC’s implementation of the innovative Geoportal Toolkit – Geosask.

“ISC has implemented the first provincial GIS Portal Toolkit in Western Canada,” said Tim Walker. “The Award of Excellence recognizes ISC’s role in developing a ground-breaking solution that will have a long-lasting impact on both the business community and the public in Saskatchewan.”

Created in collaboration with the Government of Saskatchewan, Geosask provides a gateway to a wealth of land information and maps from across various government sources. The comprehensive toolkit encompasses three main functionalities that include a Metadata Search to find information such as layer descriptions and map publisher details, an interactive Map Viewer that enables users to zoom in or out and add or remove data layers and a Download feature that allows visitors to incorporate data into their own GIS software.

“The concept behind Geosask is to provide a single source for all land related information in Saskatchewan that used to be scattered over multiple ministries” explains Wayne Adams, Director of Strategy, Geomatics and Land Services, ISC. “Free access to government data has improved efficiencies across the province and ISC is receiving fewer data requests, which allows us to dedicate our time and energies to other projects.”

The innovative portal provides free access to a variety of datasets including cadastral, geological, agricultural and hydrological with over 40 unique layers such as animal population, forest density, road networks, community, pastures and a multitude of others. The portal also provides data at different user levels from executive government to the general public and is heavily relied on by a variety of industries, namely – mining and oil & gas.

Looking forward, ISC will begin to focus on phase two of the application’s roll out which will include a number of enhancements with respect to the usability of Geosask among municipalities and the private sector. To offer the greatest value to users, private vendor services will eventually be built into the application, enabling users to take advantage of robust functionality such as leasing mining properties online.

For more information about Geosask, please visit: www.geosask.ca