Assessing geographic information enhancement

Assessment of geographic information infrastructures (or spatial data infrastructures) is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers in the Geographic information (GI) domain. Especially the assessment of value added GI appears to be complex. By applying the concept of value chain analysis to geographic information, this paper provides a research framework for unambiguously assessing GI value adding. The framework is applied to two types of geographic information in the United States and Europe. The presented research shows that the framework allows for true comparison of GI enhancement in different jurisdictions. This should result in better understanding of the level of GI enhancement in a specific jurisdiction and accordingly in effective decisions stimulating GI enhancement, geographic information infrastructures and information societies.