Developing Australian Spatial Data Policies - Existing Practices and Future Strategies

This thesis investigates the problems associated with the development of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). The results of this investigation are used as input for the development of new spatial data policy strategies for individual organisations to enable an improved better facilitation of SDIs. Policy issues that need to be considered by an organisation when developing spatial data policies, were identified as being: SDI requirements; organisational issues; technical issues; Governmental/organisational duties; ownership/custodianship; privacy and confidentiality; legal liability, contracts and licences; Intellectual Property Law; economic analysis; data management; outreach, cooperation and political mandate; and users' choices, rights and obligations.In order to gain an understanding of current spatial data policy practices and to device new policy strategies a spatial data survey was conducted. This survey addressed the identified SDI problem areas. Some 6630 questionnaires were mailed out with more than 400 responses returned. These were reduced to 379 useful responses. Once analysed, the results were compared with the findings of the SDI investigation and used throughout the thesis. The results of the analysis to the spatial data survey are displayed in tables and graphs throughout Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 and in Appendix 2. The tables and graphs show the answers to the questions asked in the questionnaire as a percentage of the total number of respondents. The survey discovered that many organisations had no spatial data policies, nor individual policies on spatial data pricing and/or intellectual property protection.This thesis established that SDI requirements are not being met by many spatial data policies used by individual organisations. Hence, the thesis studied the spatial data policy issues that are involved when an organisation develops new policies with the aim to aid the development of SDIs. It uniquely established current Australian spatial data policy practices in the areas of spatial data quality, access, pricing, and legal issues to form the basis for future strategies. It reviewed the current knowledge of intellectual property law applied to spatial data and devised new approaches to deal with all the identified policy issues. Finally, the thesis defines spatial data policies that facilitate SDI development