A county assessor asks an analyst to skip documenting sources because everyone already knows the GIS portal. What should the analyst do?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Even the town's most famous landmark still gets a pin on the map. Familiarity with the GIS portal does not retire the citation. If a finding cannot be retraced, it is not ready for a report.
Full Explanation
Source documentation is part of the OSINT process, not optional housekeeping after collection. Reviewers, auditors, and later analysts must be able to reopen the same locator and see when it was observed. Skipping citations because "everyone knows the GIS portal" breaks that trail and hides which layer, query, or export actually supported the claim. Familiar municipal systems still need URLs, retrieval times, and enough detail to reconstruct the work.