1Spatial leading Open Geospatial Consortium Resear

19 October 2007, 12:23pm

1Spatial, in cooperation with Blue Marble Geographics, is leading a research initiative by the Spatial Data Quality Working Group of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

1Spatial has been an active Member of the OGC for a number of years and Product and Marketing Director for 1Spatial, Graham Stickler, is Chair of the Spatial Data Quality Working Group (WG). The Charter of this WG is to attempt to establish how data quality can be both defined and communicated, using standards to help in the reuse of spatial data and in the creation and management of spatial data infrastructures.

The WG is looking to develop a framework, or model, for quality assurance web services that will enable access and sharing of high quality geospatial information, improve data analysis and ultimately influence policy decisions. As a first step the WG has commissioned a survey to try and establish some context and importance of Spatial Data Quality to the various stakeholders in the spatial data supply chain.

The survey went live this week and is wide reaching, targeting thousands of geospatial data suppliers and users from around the world. The WG hopes that this survey will provide a solid foundation for developing relevant terms of measure and a powerful spatial data quality model.

The survey takes only 15mins to complete and results will remain anonymous. To participate please follow the link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=_2ffWZCQbm2ugKS_2fW8A0MWIQ_3d_3d

As a thank you for participating in the survey the results of the research will be available to respondents upon completion of the questionnaire.

Graham Stickler, Chair of the Spatial Data Quality Working Group, commented:

“From the very beginning we recognised that the various participants in the geospatial data supply chain may have different requirements when it comes to data quality. As a Group we feel the best way to understand the importance and meaning of data quality to these stakeholders is to reach out and poll them ourselves. I’m delighted that as a Group we have managed to raise awareness and develop interest across the community over the past nine months. We encourage all geospatial users to participate in this survey and build momentum in this ever increasingly important area for the geospatial industry as we seek to share spatial data at an unprecedented rate.”


"We are very excited about the potential for this survey," stated Blue Marble President Patrick Cunningham, the Working Group's vice-chair. "Between the OGC membership, Blue Marble and 1Spatial customers and other geospatial users we feel that we have a good chance of gathering some very useful data."

Full details of the OGC, and of the Spatial Data Quality Working Group are available on the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org

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