fig congress 2018 - Benefits of OGD for providers of authoritative data
Christian Kaul, Jurg Luthy, Markus Luginbuhl
In the last years the concept of Open Government Data (OGD) got increased relevance and attendance. For mapping agencies as the most important data provider it became evident that OGD is more than just data for free. With the open access to data and wider usage of data sets the position of the unique knowledge bearer due their particular access to data got lost. This shift impacted the position of the mapping organisation and posed challenges to their structure as discussed by Lüthy et. al. (2016). With the first practical experiences of OGD provision owners and providers of authoritative data realised that they perceived many benefits compared to the situation before. The first and most relevant change is the simple fact that data provided under OGD are utilised more often and more intense. This effect can be shown in all Cantons of Switzerland where Cadastral data are published under OGD: What are the reason for this increase? Due to the omission of the costs for data private constructors and architects update the base maps more frequently than before and do not work anymore with outdated, incorrect data. The regular updates lead to massive increased quality in all processes from initial concept to planning, approval and to the construction. Looking from a macroeconomic perspective the omission of the costs for data is more than compensated. The broader use of the data can lead to an improved data product. If the data owner is open for criticism and feedback, the OGD infrastructure can be enriched with a simple to use module where data users have the possibility of providing error indications, improve timeliness (new objects or missing information) or comments to the overall content of the data set (data model). The one-way process should be transformed to a circuit thank to the inclusion of volunteered geographic information (VGI). First experiences show that aspects of data reliability, completeness and temporal accuracy (timeliness) are more relevant than spatial accuracy. For a successful transition towards the combination of volunteered geographic information with established data maintenance processes through the data owner different challenges have to be solved. The tools for providing feedback must be aligned to the end users which are in many cases no spatial data specialists. Furthermore, the tool should use state-of-the-art technologies, should be simple to handle and should have some appeal to ensure that it is actually used. Acknowledging feedback from non-specialists may be difficult for some experts. They have to learn, how such reports are considered to improve the data quality. Once accepted, it is important the VGI is included appropriately in the processes. The benefit of the incorporation of VGI in authoritative data is not limited to cadastral data. In Switzerland the Federal Office of Aviation (FOCA) is responsible for the publication of an obstacle data set. This OGD data set is used in designing approaches, planning of flights but also in-flight. It can be considered as mission critical information, because missing or wrong information may lead to severe accidents. To improve the quality of the data the feedback loop is in use since several years.
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