空间数据的关注问题 : 从质量到可用性

据统计,在一个地理信息系统(GIS)项目中,空间数据的花费将占总投入的80%左右。因此,如何保证所得到的数据能够满足项目需要是研究者、生产者及用户共同关心的一个重要问题。20世纪80年代以来,空间数据质量一直是GIS学术界研究的一个热门课题,并受到地理信息业界的重视。因此,数据生产者总是尽最大努力来生产高质量的数据。而实际上,数据用户经常对得到的空间数据不尽满意,尽管数据质量完全满足规范要求。笔者认为:可用性是空间数据最应优先考虑的问题,而质量仅仅是可用性的一个指标。其他的可用性指标包括可享用性、可得性、受益情况、完整性、熟悉性、业界最佳作业方法、可靠性等50多个。||It has been widely accepted that about 80% of the budget of a GIS project is the cost of spatial data. Therefore, spatial data is a big concern to both researchers and practitioners. In recent years, the quality of spatial data has become a hot research topic. Data quality has attracted much attention from geoinformation community. Data producers try their best to produce data with highest quality. However, in practice, many users are not very satisfied with the spatial data available although the quality of the data is adequate according to specifications. In this paper, the author tries to explain that "quality" is only one of the many elements in a broader concept - "usability". Other fifty measures have been identified, such as accessibility, availability, benefits, completeness, familiarity, industry best practice, reliability, and so on.