|
|
Access Maps & Information Operations CommuntiyViewer GIS & P4P Applications |
About IDDMI -- Idaho Google Maps/DMI What are the demographic characteristics for a neighborhood of interest to you? How do these neighborhood characteristics compare to the corresponding city and county? Having a means to answer these types of questions is essential to formulate policies and programs. The form of access to and use of these key data empower a better analytical and decision making processes. The Idaho Decision Making Information/Google resource is a prototype development designed to help address these needs. Using Web- and map-based tools, the user is able to access many types of information. • View demographic attributes of the "school district community" for a selected school district. • Access administratively reported data about the students enrolled in that district. • Examine the relationship between school district and city/place boundaries. • View these data in the context of interactive, up-to-date maps. • Optionally view satellite imagery of the same geography. An objective of this initiative is to enable access to integrated, multi-sourced data requiring only a Web browser and without reorganizing the original source data into new databases. Overview The Idaho Decision Making Information (DMI)/Google resource, IDDMI for short, is a Web-based tool that enables access to wide-ranging demographic, economic, and related data for a 16 county region in southeastern Idaho. The 16 county region is served by the Idaho Partners for Prosperity: New Beginnings, a non-profit initiative focused on reducing poverty, sponsored by the Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF). Data from the NWAF Indicator Website are linked to IDDMI. IDDMI builds on mapping technologies made available through the "Google API", a programming toolkit, by adding a set of map overlays for geographies of specific interest for regional and local analyses. Geographic boundaries are interfaced with the basic Google interactive maps enabling you to view the 16 county region by county, place/city, school district, census tract, and block group. These different geographic "granularities" enable you to view data for specific types of geography for locales or by organizational structure that may vary depending on the need or subject being studied. Census tracts are statistical areas subdividing counties that average 4,000 population. Block groups (BGs) are statistical areas subdividing census tracts that average 1,000 population. BGs are the smallest geographic areas for which the richer Census 2000 data are tabulated. How IDDMI is Used Anyone with access to Internet and a computer with the Internet Explorer browser can use the IDDMI resource. See the separate information on operations for details and examples. In general, it works like this. The start-up view is a Google map that shows the 16 county region. A red marker appears in each county. Select a county by clicking on the red marker. You can then either select more detailed geography, that intersects with that county, or access information about that particular county. In general, all Web pages work in this manner. The geographic areas are shown as blue boundaries with a red marker located toward the center of the polygon area (for example, a census tract). Click on the red marker to view a menu of decision making information selections that are available for this specific geographic area. The selections are Web links that give you immediate access to data that have already been summarized for this geographic area. Rather than building a new database comprised of data extracted from various sources, the links enable you to access the data using a standardized approach. As a result, there is more versatility in expanding the scope of data available, it is less costly to access multi-sourced disparate data than by using most other means, and the source information remains documented as provided by the original developing source. A New Approach to DMI Access and Use Are you a user of the Census Bureau FactFinder (http://factfinder.census.gov)? FactFinder is a very valuable resource for accessing detailed demographic and economic data. However, it can be time consuming and requires some time to learn how it can be used. IDDMI provides visually based Web links to the FactFinder (and other) data by simply clicking on markers shown on a map and then selecting the subject matter of interest. |
|
|