Government On Line (GOL)
2005 Final Report

Access to NRCan's Information and Services involves making our data, information and knowledge easier to find. For example, the Canadian Forest Service online bookstore provides one access point to search, order or download its publications. Another example, is a service called "Ask a Geologist" as a forum to pose questions on topics related to the geosciences in Canada.

Natural Resources Canada leads the development of the Science and Technology for Canadians Cluster, a one-stop source of high quality, trusted information available on-line from science-based federal government departments and agencies.

Another example of Natural Resources Canada working in partnership with other government departments, industry and academia is the development of RETScreen International Clean Energy Project Analysis Software. This software can be used world wide to evaluate the energy production, life-cycle costs and greenhouse emission reductions for various types of energy efficient and renewable energy technologies (RETs) and is available free of charge.

Interdepartmental Web Mapping and Visualization Initiative a partnership of 16 federal departments and agencies formed to streamline the collection and sharing of data on government geographic information systems (GIS), wrapped up its work in 2004.

The initiative's final report was sent to Public Works Government Services Canada for approval with a recommendation that the findings be sent on to the Inter Agency Committee on Geomatics (IACG), a group focused on developing and managing geomatics activities more strategically within the federal government and across jurisdictions.

Natural Resources Canada has several programs that offer Canadians financial incentives and support in an effort to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. One such program is the Home Energy Efficiency Retrofit Grants.

An EnerGuide for Houses advisor can assess your home and tell you its energy-using characteristics. When you have carried out the recommended improvements, you can request a follow-up visit, often for free, to re-evaluate your home and update your EnerGuide for Houses report and label. If you have done a number of the recommendations, you could be eligible for a grant.

To find a qualified EnerGuide for Houses energy evaluator in your area, visit: http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/english/index.cfm?

The Archive Maps is a compilation of maps that have been digitally reproduced from the first five editions of the Atlas of Canada, dating back to 1906. Launched July 1, 2003, this archive contains scans of 943 historical maps. You can now view them using current technology. You can explore details by zooming in and out, panning left to right, or moving the map in various directions. Then you can download and print out the results.

Want to know why the oak tree in your backyard has brown spots on it like this?

You can find the answer when you visit the Insects and Diseases of Canada's Forests.

This web site is an extensive collection of images and information prepared by the Laurentian Forestry Centre's entomology and pathology laboratories, in Quebec City, with the help of other CFS centers, such as the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, B.C. and the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. It brings together information from different areas, such as insects from one site and diseases from another, and integrates them to give you a better understanding of all aspects of forest ecosystems in Canada.

Our new search engine was launched in 2003. With the NRCan Search Engine you don't have to know the proper syntax to get the search results you are looking for. The results are faster and more relevant.

In the future, the new search engine will search not only web pages, but eventually many of our NRCan information holdings, no matter what format they are in or where they are located.

We are in the process of revitalizing the overall architecture of our web sites. In the initial phase of this project, we have completed a departmental web site analysis and options for the redesign, an analysis of user profiles, and three mock-ups for the departmental site design. To help you find information faster and easier, we have also introduced a client-focused subject listing, which provides quick links to all our information, products and sevices.

We have introduced e-bookstores so that you can instantly access and download some of our current publications or order books on-line.

For example, the Canadian Forest Service Bookstore allows you to search a catalog of approximately more than 15,000 publications by a variety of fields, including title, author, year published, keywords, subject category and ISBN. And soon you will be able to access digitalized versions of out-of-print yet in-demand publications. You can request hard copies, if available, or you can view and download Acrobat files of many recent publications. See for yourself at http://bookstore.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca

The Office of Energy Efficiency web site is one of the most visited sites at Natural Resources Canada. "We expect to surpass 1.5 million unique visitors* to our sites in 2004," says Marcelle Eburne, Manager of the Internet for the Office of Energy Efficiency.

The Office of Energy Efficiency is continuously improving the navigation, architecture and content on its sites to make information easier to find. “We did an online survey to find out who our users are, then we did a focus group to find out how they wanted our content organized,” explains Marcelle.

The response from users of the Canadian Forest Service Bookstore has been very positive:

"Nice system — easy to use; very straightforward," says Dave from Massachusetts.

"Thank you for an extraordinarily friendly site," says a reader in Washington.

"Wow! Impressively easy — much better than most web sites," says a user in Wyoming.

"An example of excellent public service," says a fan from Spain.

As of December 2005, the online bookstore has shipped out about 100,000 publications. About 9,000 publications have been downloaded.

Visitors to the Forest Ecosystems of Canada site are impressed with what they've seen:

"This site is an outstanding reference tool for anyone wanting to identify the pathology or trying to determine which insect is infecting a certain tree, as well as finding an appropriate treatment," says a user in Ottawa.

"This site is both very informative and very well done. We are confident that it will be used extensively and we will be pleased to provide a link to it from our sites. We especially appreciate they way you have imbedded solid biology within context of the issues," says a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia.

To help you find information easier, we are evaluating a taxonomy-based navigation system.

What's that? It's a classification system that enables you to search content based on subject matter categories.

For example, if you wanted to find out about business opportunities for gold mining in British Columbia, you would type in "GOLD" into the Search box then choose one or more extra "filter" categories.

Enter keyword alone, "GOLD" and results = 1,274 documents.

Add a geographical dimension, "BRITISH COLUMBIA" and results = 209 documents.

Add a business dimension, "BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES" and results = 23 documents.

This way, you can quickly filter through vast quantities of information and retrieve only the information you desire. The results are much more manageable. And you are much more likely to look through a few documents than the thousands of documents returned in traditional keyword searching.

A business case is being drafted for a taxonomy-based navigation system for the Department.