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chapter six Spatial data infrastructures: Policy, value, and cost–benefit 6.1 Introduction to policy in spatial data infrastructure Among the key policy issues affecting geographic information (GI) glob-ally are information ownership, custodianship, and preservation; access and exploitation rights; and charging regimes for public sector information (PSI). Some of these issues were examined in earlier chapters. In this chap-ter, we explore the role of geographic information policies and their imple-mentation strategies within spatial data infrastructure (SDI) and under the umbrella framework of national information infrastructure (NII). In doing so, we revisit the concepts of value of GI and how the many values identified in Chapter 2 affect infrastructure-wide impact assessments or cost–benefit analyses for SDI implementations. Following the practice of earlier chapters, we begin at the elementary level of defining some basic terms, such as policy, information policy, and strat-egy, and then present a sample of SDI definitions to see where policy falls within these definitions. This chapter is not meant to be a compendium of SDIs that are evolving around the globe, which has been the focus of sev-eral publications over the past decade (Burrough and Masser, 1998; Groot and McLaughlin, 2000; Van Loenen and Kok, 2004; Masser, 2005, 2007; Van Loenen, 2006; Crompvoets, 2006; Onsrud, 2007). Rather, we present samples of SDI initiatives at the national and regional level to provide insight into how policy issues are at the heart of SDI visions, goals, and strategies, along with other technical and organization issues where policies may have only an indirect impact. Many SDI policies are aligned to national information infrastructure (NII) policies, inherently or on purpose, since much GI is in the public sector, and is the the focus of many NII initiatives, including PSI reuse and e-governance. We start by asking what policies are and why have them. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a policy is a plan of action “intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters” or a “guid-ing principle, or procedure considered expedient, prudent, or advantageous.” Wikipedia refers to policy as both a thing and a process that “includes the identification of different alternatives, such as programs or spending priori-ties, and choosing among them on the basis of the impact they will have.” Interestingly, infrastructures and especially SDIs have also been labeled both 159 ` 2008 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 160 Geographic Information: Value, Pricing, Production, and Consumption as things (products that exist or are created) and as processes (by which the things are created). One way of looking at SDI policy might be to see what type of policy it constitutes, for example, distributive, redistributive, regulatory, or constitu-ent-based. Understanding what type of policy is being determined may help also to understand the functional goals of the policy from the viewpoint of the policy makers. Distributive policies extend goods and services to members of an organization or society, as well as distributing the costs of the goods and services among the members of that organization or society. Redistributive policies have the positive impact of distributive policies while simultaneously taking away benefits from other stakeholders. Regulatory policies place limits on organizations or individuals by allowing or disallow-ing certain behaviors, or otherwise enforcing certain types of good behavior. Examples in the information sector include regulations dealing with intel-lectual property protection or personal privacy protection. For a regulatory policy to be effective, it must be possible to identify the good behavior and regulate or enforce sanctions for bad behavior. Unfortunately for the SDI policy maker, the types of policies embodied in an SDI strategy could place the SDI policy in almost any one of these types, and sometimes in more than one type simultaneously. Burger (1993, p. 18) states that constituency-based policies are the most difficult to characterize or describe, quoting Salisbury (1968, p. 158) who con-tends that they impose constraints on a group but are perceived to increase and not decrease benefits to the group. Lowi’s (1972) definition of constitu-ent policy confers broad costs and benefits to society assuming a top-down process of policy making dominated by elected officials and administrative agencies, as opposed to policy that affects narrow, often economic, interests. Tolbert (2002) refined this concept to include governance policy, which “has a prominent procedural component and can be initiated by a bottom-up pro-cess of policymaking, via citizen initiatives or interest groups, as well as by a top-down process through political elites.” Wikipedia proposes that constituent policies create executive powers or deal with laws. For example, in the Spanish province of Catalonia, Law 16/2005 of December 2005 creates executive powers for a regional cartographic commis-sion and places responsibilities on the regional cartographic institute regard-ing GI and SDI for the province. This is an example of a constituent policy setting out goals and responsibilities. A separate decree in October 2006 sets the regulations by which the policy in the law is to be enacted and enforced, which is an example of regulator policy that includes concrete action plans. We look at policy as a product in section 6.1.2 and as a process in section 6.1.3. First, let us look more closely at information policy itself, since the main policy element in any SDI relates to the information. We will not investigate further the distinctions between information policy and knowledge policy proposed by Bawden (1996), except to note his conclusion that information ` 2008 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Chapter six: Spatial Data Infrastructures 161 policy is “dependent upon an appreciation of the meaning and significance of knowledge in its context.” 6.1.1 Information policy What is information policy, and what is unique about it compared to other types of policy? According to Burger (1993), information policy is but one of many types of public policy, yet is seldom mentioned specifically or separately in public policy literature reviews prior to 1980. In the 1990s, information policy was usually lumped in with information and communications tech-nology (ICT) policy, including information management. While many of the main issues in ICT policy are relevant, information policy also includes “much more, such as scientific and technical information policy, privacy issues, lit-eracy, freedom of speech, libraries and archives, secrecy and its effects on com-mercial information policy and national security, and access to government information” (Burger, 1993, p. 3). Burger proposes three reasons for appar-ent difficulty in understanding information policies, the first of which is that “information remains an intangible enigma” (Burger, 1993, p. 5) despite the considerable research and resources expended on such understanding, mul-tiple definitions, often unquantifiable benefits, etc. His second reason is that information policy deals with policy, which he acknowledges is not a particu-larly remarkable insight, but notes that even political scientists who deal exten-sively in policy issues have difficulty defining and understanding policy, so why should information policy be any different. His final reason is that infor-mation is pervasive, “involved in every social choice we make” — how similar to the oft-quoted “GI is everywhere” proclamation of the GI community. Rowlands (1996, p. 11) notes that information policy is characterized by: • Involvement of large numbers of stakeholders (a result of the ubiquity of information). • Information policy decisions may impact on other events and policies in numerous other sectors than that for which the policy was first defined. • It is difficult to use traditional policy analysis methodologies where information is concerned. • Information policy is made at many different levels, from private and organizational up through all levels of government, even globally. Different information policies also depend upon the type of information that is the focus of the policy, e.g., private vs. public, and how the informa-tion is to be used, i.e., as a public good or a tradable commodity, available via unrestricted information flow vs. closed, restricted flow, e.g., via strong intellectual property rights (IPR) protection or other (Rowlands 1996, p. 15). This level of complexity gives rise to naturally occurring contests between how different types of information is disseminated and used, as discussed in Chapters 3 to 5. ` 2008 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 162 Geographic Information: Value, Pricing, Production, and Consumption Regarding information policy goals, we will see that SDI policy goals are not that different from those of other major government information policies. For example, the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), established by law in 1970, is a permanent, independent agency of the federal government that advises the president and Congress on the implementation of policy affecting libraries and information provi-sion generally. In response to the threatened closure of the National Tech-nical Information Service (NTIS) in the Department of Commerce in 1999, at the request of U.S. congressional leaders, NCLIS launched a study into “fundamental issues regarding how the government used, disseminated and valued its information resources” (NCLIS, 2001, p. 3). The report was produced and widely circulated within federal agencies, including by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Commission proposed 36 rec-ommendations, 16 of which were classed as strategic. These fell into the fol-lowing main categories: • Creating three new federal government-level offices responsible for different types of information plus retaining the NTIS (and its budget) • Implementing a separate information dissemination budget • Strengthening existing federal acts and regulations relating to infor-mation dissemination by and within federal agencies • Encouraging similar moves at state and local government levels • Fostering stronger partnering with the private sector, especially for value-added products and services • Better coordination at the federal government level • Greater training and awareness activities plus improved access tech-nology for greater inclusion of civil society In the recommendations listed above, the reader familiar with SDI strate-gies can see direct parallels with similar policy goals and recommendations at the national and regional level regarding SDI creation, which will become more apparent in section 6.2. 6.1.2 Policy as product Formal policy statements are the means by which policy makers define spe-cific goals for their policies, which can be political, financial, administrative, or operational. Goals can also be classified as economic, societal, socioeco-nomic, or governance related. Policy as a product is often embodied in model policies that are promulgated by either law or regulation, or as some other form of official recommendation, the latter typically not as enforceable as the former. Model policies or policy statements usually comprise a justification for needing the (new) policy, the rationale behind the policy proposed in the model or statement, and references to goals and (perhaps) success criteria (if evaluation of the policy is mentioned in the document). Policy statements or ` 2008 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Chapter six: Spatial Data Infrastructures 163 model policies need not specify actual implementation procedures or actions, since many different approaches may be employed to achieve the policy’s goals, and these implementation measures and associated instruments may change over the timescale that the main policy remains in effect. Orna (1999) proposed a range of components for an organization’s infor-mation policy, which we feel apply equally to the information policy ele-ments within a national or regional SDI, including: • Stating the overall objectives for information use in the organization and priorities within these objectives • Defining what constitutes information in regard to the policy • Defining information management principles • Defining human resource management principles • Proposing technology to use to support information management for achieving the policy goals • Defining cost-effectiveness principles for both information and knowl-edge management Those readers familiar with the European Union’s INSPIRE directive (EU, 2007) will note the striking similarity between the information policy com-ponents listed above and those found in the principle articles of the directive relating to a pan-European SDI. SDI policies relate primarily to government information issues and are thus a subset or special application of wider public policy planning, of pub-lic sector information (PSI) policy, and e-government policies and strategies. This overlap is due to the oft-quoted maxim that “GI is everywhere.” Since public sector GI (PSGI) is both public sector information and geographic information, it is virtually impossible that SDI can be defined and created without intersecting with NII policies and strategies. It is often difficult to separate the policy product from the policy process. For example, research in Scotland into model policies for land use planning started with the premise that the study was “as much concerned with the processes involved in preparing and maintaining model policies as the poli-cies themselves. It thus deals with policy as product and policy as process” (Scottish Executive, 2004). The Scottish Executive found that model policies that focused on words, form, style, and content in order to compare differ-ent land development practices suffered from too great an emphasis on the product — the model policy wording — which “may not be sufficiently sen-sitive to the wider policy processes required to sustain model policies” (Scot-tish Executive, 2004, p. 19). 6.1.3 Policy as process Rajabifard (2002) recommended “adoption of an SDI process-based model instead of the current strategy for the APSDI development … a better ` 2008 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ... - tailieumienphi.vn
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