Spatial data quality and a workflow tool

Although by many perceived as important, spatial data quality has hardly ever been taken centre stage unless something went wrong due to bad quality. However, we think this is going to change soon. We are more and more relying on data driven processes and due to the increased availability of data, there is a choice in what data to use. How to make that choice? We think spatial data quality has potential as a selection criterion.

In this paper we focus on how a workflow tool can help the consumer as well as the producer to get a better understanding about which product characteristics are important. For this purpose, we have developed a framework in which we define different roles (consumer, producer and intermediary) and differentiate between product specifications and quality specifications. A number of requirements is stated that can be translated into quality elements. We used case studies to validate our framework. This framework is designed following the fitness for use principle. Also part of this framework is software that in some cases can help ascertain the quality of datasets.