Computerising County Land Offices |
Friday, 30 June 2000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In 2000, the Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development (MARD) will start the implementation of a GIS project, which is partly financed by the PHARE programme and the Hungarian government. The overall objective of this project is to strengthen the land office network in order to cope with the challenges of the reinforcement of market economy through creating conditions for the development of land and real estate and the adoption of the relevant EU standards. The proposed project „META” is the last phase of the so-called TAKAROS technical conception and essential part of the approved strategy of the MARD on land management sector. Computerisation of County Land Offices in Hungary Piroska Zalaba1, Ádám Podolcsák2 6. EC-GIS Workshop: “Spatial information society – Shaping the future” The overall TAKAROS concept (Countrywide Computerisation of Map Based Cadastre) was gradually developed. META is the final step of the overall TAKAROS development. The project is focused on IT development. META aims to develop a well-functioning GIS solution for the county land offices, to create the conditions of marketing LIS (Land Information System) data managed by the land office sector and backstopping to the TAKAROS District Land Office system. Besides, META will introduce a Management Information System (MIS) for the sector, and provide a widely distributed GIS data processing ability to support the adoption of EU CAP. Furthermore, it promotes the land office network to become self-financing. To achieve these aims, a strong IT system will be procured to the county land offices. The system will be developed in accordance with the following main requirements:
The paper presents the most important technical features of the META system. The presentation is based on the existing technical concept and specification of META. 1. The role of the META project within the strategy of MARD DLM META is the final step of the TAKAROS development and essential part of the approved strategy of the MARD on land management sector. The overall TAKAROS (Térkép Alapú KAtaszteri Rendszer Országos Számítógépesítése – Countrywide Computerisation of Map Based Cadastre) concept covers the computerisation of the entire land office network. (A more detailed description can be found in the proceedings of the 5th EC-GIS Workshop, 1999 under the title of P. Zalaba – Á. Podolcsák: Managing GIS projects under Phare rules). The TAKAROS IT concept defined two different levels of the land office computerisation, as a consequence of the different roles and functions of the district land offices (DLO) and county land offices (CLO). The district land offices mean the operative level of the land administration, where the entire workflow is legally defined. The TAKAROS-DLO is a workflow driven land administration system including LIS features as well, like checking sketch maps, applications for registration of land titles, and updating maps and legal data. The county land offices are the management and business level of the land management sector. The TAKAROS-CLO system, the so-called META (MEgyei TAKAROS) will provide the necessary IT resources for the maintenance of the DLO databases, support the production of value added services and introduces a Management Information System (MIS) for the land administration. META will be the gateway for the multipurpose nation-wide Land Information Service to be introduced after the completion. META enables CLO to provide technical support to DLO such as help desk and background data processing, and completes the missing interfaces of the overall TAKAROS system. In order to increase the income of the land offices, META provides comprehensive GIS functionality for prototyping and manufacturing GI data products. The general objective of this project is to strengthen the land office network in order to cope with the challenges of the reinforcement of market economy through creating conditions for the development of land and real estate and the adoption of the relevant EU standards. Major strategy results to be achieved:
2. Profile of the system to be developed The IT strategy defines the META system and the general requirements on national and institutional level. The technical profile of the system is described in the project specification. In the followings the functional requirements, technical aims and the structure of technical tools are presented. 2.1 Structure of functions Group of Functions No 1: Multipurpose electronic archive sub-system at the CLO level Group of Functions No 2: Back-end data processing at CLO level to support the DLOs Group of Functions No 3: Manufacturing of GI data products Group of Functions No 4: Wide-range distribution of data products Group of Functions No 5: Establishing services and data products onto Internet Group of Functions No 6: Supporting land office managers 2.2 Structure of system aims Aim No 1: Applying EU promoted GI standards to META Aim No 2: Enforcing EU promoted GI standards in Hungary Aim No 3: IT Integration Aim No 4: Interoperability between the DLO and CDLO Aim No 5: Involvement of the internal technical support Aim No 6: Supporting quality assurance of GI data files at the CLOs 2.3 Zooming in the structure Figure 2-1 presents the META functional and aim structure. All group of functions are explained in details in the project specification. As an example, Figure 2-2 presents a more detailed description of “Group of Functions No 2: Back-end data processing at CLO level to support the DLOs”.
Figure 2-2: Structure of functions and aims of 2.4 HUNEX Figure 2-2 introduces a new phrase, HUNEX. From technical point of view, it is a core element of the system. The CEN elaborated data exchange is usually referred as CENEX. In line with that HUNEX is introduced for META supported data exchange mechanism and tools of model description, encoding mechanism, etc. Bridging the gap between ISO and CEN approaches HUNEX is more general. HUNEX is expected to equally support data transfer and distributed data maintenance.
Figure 2-3: HUNEX options A HUNEX is to be composed fromstandard CEN and ISO element to support the following: Definition of data products CLOs create their products using electronic data processing systems. Each of them has a data model. It is logical to describe this application schema in HUNEX supported language. In this way, not only the syntactical checking of the definition but, the development and use of the products will be supported by META. Off-line data transfer (Input / Output) Transferring data needs HUNEX data modelling language written application schemas. Both the source and the destination systems must be described. It is of primary importance that all of the computerised land office data be portable. Hence, their HUNEX data modelling language written application schemas must be elaborated. Using a data set from an external source needs its HUNEX data modelling language description and HUNEX encoded representation. Management Information will be imported from external stand-alone systems using the HUNEX data transfer approach. Programming interface (API) META asks for a solution to integrate TAKAROS-DLO and to harmonise the DLO and CDLO systems. They will be covered with a standard API. It will provide a set of routines to develop software application quasi-independently of the hidden IT systems. In line with the CEN and Hungarian standards, each data model of the entire TAKAROS system must be described in an application schema written in the HUNEX data modelling language and the HUNEX encoding mechanism must be part of TAKAROS. The API of TAKAROS must support the HUNEX data modelling language describing the data model and its objects. Definition of managed data models The CLO archives and catalogues a vast number of different data sets. Defined data models make GIS operations easier because object features define the practicable operators and the way of managing attributes of objects. This way of comprehensively adopting the HUNEX approach leads to a general GIS system, which is object oriented and data model independent in data processing. HUNEX is the common base of the data transfer. In this way the:
2.5 Structure of technical tools of the project Technical tools include the planned set of functions and the aimed features. They can be tangible or intangible goods e.g. computers or training services. Figure 2-4, as an example shows the structure of technical tools for the “Group of Functions No 2: Back-end data processing at CLO level to support the DLOs”.
Figure 2-4: Structure of technical tools for Back-end data processing at CLO level to support the DLOs 3. Implementation of the project The way of implementation is shaped by the technical profile of META and all the institutional circumstances. The technical aspects of META are manageable, but the Phare and the National Budgeting are less predictable and have more risks. 3.1 Project structure The project consists of twelve inter-related sub-projects. Phare finances three components, the smaller ones are financed by the Hungarian Government. This structure shows the complexity of the entire META project. Phare contribution will enhance the modernisation of the land office network in order to cope with the challenges of reinforcing the market economy and the adoption of EU standards – especially on the adaptation of Common Agricultural Policy. MARD DLM will fund about 25% of the total project costs. Other local co-financing contributions will cover local technical expertise and management. 3.2 Time schedule As a result of the Phare administration the project is already in delay. The next table shows the current and rescheduled version of timing.
3.3 Project management structure META will be an integrated and complex GIS system, and as such is more difficult to design and develop than a normal office system for example. The system integration will require strong and careful management. Failure to provide this could result in delays with the implementation of the project. The county land offices are co-ordinated by MARD DLM. There is an overall Project Director at DLM. He is a high-level decision-maker, controls the entire Land Registration project through “specific” Project Managers who deal with related projects and are supported by executive assistants. META project has its own team. The user representatives involved and FÖMI employees report to the META Project Manager for the purposes of the project. At county level the project is managed by a single person, who is usually the Electronic Data Processing (EDP) manager. He/she is part of the CLO staff and is fully informed about local managerial issues. It is his/her responsibility to inform the “special” manager concerning his/her project. All projects at MARD DLM are managed in a form of matrix organisation where the hierarchical management has more importance than the project management. The only matrix point where the management of projects and the control of daily operations can conflict is at the CLO Project Management level. But because the CLO Project Manager is part of the CLO, and rules of for resolving conflicts and priorities are very clearly defined, any clash between operational responsibilities and project responsibilities is negated. ![]() Figure 3-1: Managing projects within MARD DLM 4. Summary META project serves the institutional strategy of MARD DLM. The overall objective of this project is to strengthen the land management sector in order to cope with the challenges of developing the market economy and supporting the adoption of the acquis communautaire as part of the accession to the EU process. The META system is the last step of the MARD DLM strategy, the TAKAROS approach. It will provide internal, technical support to the DLOs, a Management Information System concerning lands and operation of the land offices, and a widely distributed GIS data processing ability to support the adoption of IACS and the land office network in becoming self-financing. The project is focuses on generating cost recovery, making more reliable the existing data processing of the land office network, supporting management. The functionality of the project has six groups. The technical profile is a comprehensive GIS project, which must adopt the recently developed international GIS standards. META is a successor of the already completed projects, thus it is built on the existing project management structure. The EC and local level administration of Phare projects is still slow, hence the project is in delay. References |