Press Release - 2nd May 2008

Spatial Vision (SV) has been engaged by the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) – Spatial Information Infrastructure (SII) to undertake a Data Quality Reporting Project focussed on the Vicmap suite of products.

The Vicmap range is a set of spatially related data products for Victoria made up from individual datasets. They provide the underlying foundation for many Victorian mapping and geographic information systems. Vicmap products include Property, Address, Transport, Planning, Hydro, Position and Imagery.

This new project is focused on the development of data quality measures and reporting. It includes the identification of appropriate and informative spatial data quality measures for Vicmap data sets, the identification of techniques and methods to assess data quality measures and associated threshold and conformance levels, the development of a quarterly SII Management Team report, and the development of a report identifying the current and future business requirements for a data quality reporting mechanism.
In order to complete this project SV will research and review international best practice with respect to spatial data quality frameworks and measures and consult with Vicmap Custodial Officers to review both current and potential future data quality measures. SV will also draw upon its many years of experience as both a user and Data Service Provider (DSP) of Vicmap products.

 According to Lucy Minato, Senior Consultant with Spatial Vision, “To date the project has been successful in identifying and documenting quality measures which the Custodial Officers are keen to see reported. Developing methods of easily deriving and reporting on these measures will provide valuable information to the Custodial Officers as well as to SII Management.” SV will use their experience with defining data quality measures to apply the ISO standards related to geographic information to the Vicmap products. This process involves identifying an applicable data quality element, sub-element and quality measure description for a specific data set, identifying the scope, selecting and applying a data quality evaluation method, and determining the conformance quality level.

Appropriate information on the quality of spatial data is important as it allows Custodial Officers to validate how well a dataset meets the criteria set out in the product description/specification. In addition, if this information is fed back into the product description or product metadata, it assists the data users in determining the specific product’s ability to satisfy the requirements for their particular application.
As stated by Michael Black, Senior Consultant with Spatial Vision, “To be able to accurately assess the quality of spatial data is a very useful as it allows users to quickly assess the usefulness of data in relation to the project at hand.”

This project builds on Spatial Vision’s significant experience in Vicmap data both as a user and as a data re-seller while also demonstrating their expertise in the area of data quality auditing and reporting.

For further information, please contact:

Michael Black
Ph: (03) 9691 3000
email info@spatialvision.com.au

Copyright © Spatial Vision, Friday, 2-May-2008