Over the last two decades many countries throughout the world have taken steps to establish national Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDls). These actions have sought to provide an infrastructure for accessing and sharing spatial data to reduce the duplication of spatial data collection by both users and producers, and enable better utilization of spatial data and associated services. When developing SDI initiatives it is increasingly important to assess their outcomes in order to justify the resources spent on those infrastructures. Many researchers throughout the world have been struggling with the issue of assessing SDls. The task is difficult due to complex, dynamic and constantly evolving nature of SDI.
The main objective of this thesis is to develop a framework for assessing Spatial Data Infrastructures. This main objective is divided into four sub-objectives: 1. to analyse SDI complexity; 2. to develop a SDI assessment framework; 3. to evaluate the developed SDI assessment framework; 4. to expand the developed SDI Assessment Framework by adding an assessment view for a goal-oriented SDI assessment. Each of these sub-objectives are analyzed in chapters 2 -5. Read More
