Monday, March 21, 2011

International Charter Efforts in Japan

This web page features a large number of overhead images produced by the International Charter for the Japan Earthquake Disaster of March 11, 2011.  Also look for the red link along the bottom of the top box for access to the USAR MGRS 1KM map books.

Go here: 
http://www.disasterscharter.org/web/charter/activation_details?p_r_p_1415474252_assetId=ACT-359

Saturday, March 19, 2011

New Release Features - DHS First Responder Communities of Practice

As many of you are aware, DHS has been working hard to bring on line collaborative tools for the response community.  Here's an update on their efforts at the "DHS First Responder Communities of Practice".

"Dear Member,

Have you visited First Responder Communities of Practice lately (www.communities.firstresponder.gov)? We’ve just launched version 2.01 – visit the site to check out some of the latest features, many of which are a direct result of feedback provided by site members.

New features include:

• New Community Subscription Management Page: This feature enables users to manage subscriptions and notification preferences in all communities of which they are a member. Members can manage subscription to each community’s discussions, wiki, documents repository, blogs and the newly released community Wall. You can find the subscriptions under Quick Links on the site homepage or in the navigation under Communities > Manage Subscriptions.

• New Global Blog on the Main Homepage: You can now post blogs to the global blog, which appears on all members’ homepages.

• New Community Wall on Community Homepages: You can now post short messages on the homepage of a community for quick announcements, discussion, or questions.

• New Community Tag Clouds: Each community now offers a community tag cloud – making it easier for you to quickly discover each community’s most popular or latest content.

• Invitations: You can invite your colleagues to the site through the invitation module – this feature now has an increased character limit for personal messages. You also now have the ability to preview invitation email text before sending the invitation request.

• Member Directory: You can now quickly find your connections within the Member Directory - connections are now denoted with an icon for simple discovery.

• Inbox : You can send and receive emails via the site’s email module. The new release now allows you to send an email to 25 individuals at once.

• Discussion Board: The new release offers enhancements within discussion boards in each community, including informative tooltips and additional information added to notification emails.

For any questions or to discuss the existing or latest features, please log into First Responder Communities of Practice and post to the User Forum. Thank you for your continued support of the site. Your participation is crucial in establishing the site as a useful resource for the first responder community!"

First Responder Communities of Practice
https://communities.firstresponder.gov

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Open Geospatial Consortium Standards: In More Places Than You Realize

Carl Reed and Steven Ramage of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) offer their thoughts on the important role of open standards for location based services, particularly for protecting location privacy and for enhancing interoperability for emergency and disaster management. 

Go here: http://geodatapolicy.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/ogc-standards/

Next HAZUS-MH Central HAZUS Users Group (CHUG) Teleconference


Wednesday, July 8
1:00-2:00 PM CT
Phone: 1-800-320-4330
      
PIN: 521468
 
Get on the info list:


Kevin Mickey
The Polis Center
317-278-2582
kmickey@iupui.edu




To read the March minutes of the HAZUS-MH Central HAZUS Users Group (CHUG), go here:  https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3UROkg-qGTaNDljNzlhZTItODU5Yi00YmI1LWE3OGQtM2Y5YThjY2FhODYz&hl=en_US

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

HSIP Gold 2011 Released

NGA is now accepting requests for HSIP Gold 2011 through the HIFLD WG website http://www.hifldwg.org/.  The HSIP Gold Database is a unified homeland infrastructure geospatial data inventory assembled by NGA in partnership with the HIFLD community for common use by the Homeland Security (HLS), Homeland Defense (HD) and Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery (EPR&R) communities.  It is a compilation of geospatial data characterizing domestic infrastructure and boundaries assembled from a variety of federal agencies, commercial vendors and state mission partners.  The HSIP Gold 2011 database is disseminated on a 3 DVD set and is subject to For Official Use Only (FOUO) handling guidance.

Due to licensing restrictions, NGA can only disseminate HSIP Gold 2011 to those requestors who are validated as Federal Interagency members of the HLS/HD/EPR&R Communities, National Guard WMD-CSTs, National Guard Critical Infrastructure Protection – Mission Assurance Assessment teams (or their supporting contractors).  If you would like to request the HSIP Gold 2011 data, please login to the HIFLD web site, select the “HSIP” tab, and click “HSIP Gold 2011”, then “Submit Request for Data” link.  If you requested HSIP Gold 2010 you are not required to re-request HSIP Gold 2011, however, you MUST validate your user information under “My HSIP Requests” before HSIP Gold 2011 will be processed for delivery.

Please print the signatory pages of the agreement (last 3 pages), sign, scan and email to the NGA HSIP Team at HSIP_Team@nga.mil.  Your request cannot be processed until this form is received by NGA.  If a PDF document does not open, please contact the HIFLD WG Staff hifldwg@bah.com  for further assistance.

For any assistance with HSIP Gold access or dissemination issues, please contact the NGA HSIP Team at: HSIP_Team@nga.mil.

If you are not a validated Federal Interagency member, you can download HSIP Freedom from the DHS Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) GIS portal.  The HSIP Freedom data set is a subset of the HSIP Gold that includes data free from licensing restrictions.  HSIP Freedom 2011 is expected to be available shortly after the release of HSIP Gold 2011.  An additional email will be sent to registered HIFLD members announcing the availability of HSIP Freedom 2011.