GCRO GIS website launched on 1 September 2010

The GCRO GIS Interactive website was formally launched on 1 September 2010. The GIS website was developed as an interactive tool to assist both local and provincial governments, to better understand the Gauteng City-Region and make informed decisions about development in the GCR. The application allows the user to visualize GCR base data and themed layers, by offering different perspectives of the GCR, such as population distribution, economic datasets and the latest 2009 Quality of life survey results as maps and graphs.

The main users of the application are considered to be the GCRO stakeholders – Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) Planning Commission, GPG Office of the Premier, Local government officials and other GCR government agencies. The site is publically accessible through the GCRO website, providing open access to the Gauteng City-Region GIS data.

Pictures from the launch showing users (including on the right, Head of Planning: Gauteng Planning Commission, Sibusiso Xaba) interacting with the GIS website.

Three launch sessions were held over three days from 1 - 3 September at the Wits Chamber of Mines engineering lab, with each session focusing on a different group of users, i.e. GIS specialists, local and government officials involved in planning, and GPG Heads of Departments. After a short introduction explaining the business need for the GIS website and development process, an interactive demo of the website was presented by Chris Wray with participants able to interact and learn the various tools and datasets available using the engineering lab PCs. Attendees then evaluated the website by filling in an online questionnaire designed to measure user acceptance of the new application. The demo was followed by a presentation from Aubrey Kekana, Director: GIS from the Gauteng Department of Economic Development (DED), detailing the DED's GeoGCR concept plan which aims to maximise the benefits of GIS tools and fundamentally change the delivery of provincial information delivery.

The website has so far received a positive response with most of the launch attendees indicating that they would use the website to improve the performance of their jobs, and that it will be a valuable tool providing access to provincial and local datasets.

The GIS website is accessible via the Interactive GIS page.