ABOUT SLGO

Context

The St. Lawrence Global Observatory, incorporated under Part III of the Companies Act (Quebec), is a not-for-profit organization in accordance with the Income Tax Act. Its objective is to establish and operate an autonomous center for the integration and dissemination of data and information about the St. Lawrence’s global system.A significant amount of information regarding the entire St. Lawrence – Great Lakes ecosystem is produced on a continuous basis by various organizations operating within the territory (ministries, research organizations, management organizations, etc.). It is therefore necessary to have an efficient and enabling infrastructure to best access and make use of this vast information inheritance.

Mission and vision

The vision of  SLGO  is to be the central access point to quality open data on the St. Lawrence and to ensure its international reach.In that respect, SLGO’s mission is to accelerate data delivery by bringing together the expertise needed to ensure innovative and effective data and information management for the benefit of communities and ecosystems.Access to information highlighted by the SLGO also offers development opportunities geared toward public and private sectors of derived products and services, consequently generating considerable socio-economic benefits.The content distributed by the SLGO spans across all disciplines, themes and areas of interest that information-producing members choose to make accessible. A large amount of scientific and environmental information is already available on the SLGO portal. In order to maximize data democratization, the SLGO team continues to develop user-friendly Web applications so to facilitate visualization and data downloading in various formats by means of directly usable free software.The clientele targeted is very broad, it includes data producers and data holders themselves, and also: the general public, community issue tables, the industry, specialist clientele such as university researchers, research units and even diverse communities such as maritime shipping, environmental assessment, etc.The synergy generated by the pooling of resources from both the SLGO and its members optimizes dissemination efforts as well as generating exchanges amongst data producers, which in turn benefit the appraisal of data sources. Benefits to members also include a reduction in effort duplication and costs relative to collective dissemination of information which increases the ability to fulfill each’s respective mandates while benefiting the community of one’s clients; by the same token making accessible various additional funding mechanisms, and in doing so, enabling the pursuit of SLGO’s mission.In its approach, the SLGO acts as a means for both the democratization and the enhancement of the St. Lawrence’s scientific information patrimony by drawing upon its expertise in Web development and information technology (IT). It also makes accessible via its Internet platform tools for: the dissemination of information, technological solutions and international visibility. Also the SLGO contributes both at a national and international level to the creation of a pole of excellence geared toward benefiting from scientific exchanges with other global initiatives.Its mission is in line with the objectives of major government programs such as the St. Lawrence Action Plan 2011-2026, Quebec’s Government Sustainable Development Strategy 2015-2020 ¹ (and open access to data from 2), Quebec’s National Water Policy, Quebec’s Concerted Action for Regional Development Cooperation (ACCORD) project, Canada’s Oceans Action Plan, as well as open access ² to the Global Earth Observation Programs (GEO / GEOSS 3 ³).

1. Ministère du Développement durable, de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques. Stratégie gouvernementale de développement durable 2015-2020. Québec, 2015, 121 pages 
2. Open Government: Canada | Québec
3. Group on Earth Observation/Global Earth Observing System of Systems – GEO/GEOSS