Standards

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines standards as documented agreements containing technical specifications or other precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or definitions of characteristics to ensure that materials, products, processes, and services are fit for their purpose. In our increasingly globalized economy, efficient and effective management of complex heterogeneous information from multiple sources calls for development of a common framework to interconnect the participating organizations with information technology (IT). Increasingly available distributed computing technology has enabled the challenging but necessary task of building information systems that can share distributed and heterogeneous data sources from multiple jurisdictions and different information infrastructures. One of the main challenges facing geospatial [Page 447]experts is to build geographic information systems (GIS) and other information systems utilizing spatial data that overcome the various barriers resulting from the use of heterogeneous geospatial information and services with different structures and meanings. Standards are the key way by which this is accomplished.

According to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Circular 119, the term standard, or technical standard, includes all of the following:

• Common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines, or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods and related management systems practices.
• The definition of terms; classification of components; delineation of procedures; specification of dimensions, materials, performance, designs, or operations; measurement of quality and quantity in describing materials, processes, products, systems, services, or practices; test methods and sampling procedures; or descriptions of fit and measurements of size or strength.

This entry begins by briefly considering the need for and kinds of standards and then goes on to discuss a few of the most important organizations developing standards for GIS.