At this moment, numerous (catalogue) geoportals have been established and it is expected that many more geoportals will be implemented in the future. To the best of our knowledge, not many status, development and impact assessment studies have been performed with regard to all these initiatives (certainly not on a worldwide scale). It is very important to know what the main developments and impacts of these facilities are to justify all costs, efforts and time to implement these geoportals and to improve their effectiveness and efficiency. For this reason, a survey was undertaken (November 2003 – April 2004) in order to assess the worldwide (status, developments and) impacts. The survey consisted of 21 questions and was sent to all known geoportal coordinators. In total 428 coordinators were contacted. 105 coordinators completed the survey. They were mainly coordinating international, national/federal and state geoportals in Europe, Australia and USA/Canada (only a few were coordinating Caribbean, African and Asian ones). The results were aggregated for the whole world. The main results are that the implementation of geoportals is a global activity, that the use of geoportals and spatial data will increase, that more services will be provided and new services will be introduced within the next 5 years. As the main drawbacks for implementation are considered: institutional problems, lack of specialized data managers and data standardization. Moreover, it seems that geoportals (of the developed world) have a positive impact on society. These impacts are mainly economic in nature.@en

The motives for building SDIs are often based on anticipated benefits for society, economy, and environment. According to those widely articulated, but rarely proven benefits, SDI coordinators have been defining more specific objectives to be achieved by their SDIs. However, there is a limited number of assessment approaches able to demonstrate if SDIs indeed realize the intended goals. In this article we develop, apply and evaluate an assessment view for evaluating the extent to which SDIs realize their goals. The assessment view has been developed stepwise using the Multi-view SDI assessment framework (Grus et al., 2007) as a guideline. The method of developing an assessment view consists of 4 phases: 1) defining an assessment purpose; 2) developing an assessment view; 3) applying an assessment view; 4) evaluating the extent to which SDI realize its goals. Phase 1 focuses on stating the purpose of the proposed assessment view. Based on the analysis of various assessment models and approaches (Chelimsky, 1997; Hansen, 2005; Grus et al., 2007) it has been stated that the purpose of the proposed assessment view is to answer the question: to what degree has the SDI goals has been realized? Phase 2 focuses on developing the assessment view. The development of the assessment view consists of 6 steps: 1) identifying SDI goals; 2) compiling a long list of potential indicators; 3) identifying SDI stakeholders; 4) organizing a workshop; 5) selecting and matching the indicators with SDI goals; 6) formulating an assessment view. Phase 3 focuses on applying the formulated assessment view by measuring the values of the selected indicators. Phase 4 focuses on interpreting the meaning of the indicators values measured in the previous phase. The developed assessment view has been tested in the Dutch SDI. In 2008, the Dutch government approved the GIDEON document as a policy aiming at the implementation of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in the Netherlands (VROM, 2008). The execution of GIDEON should take place by pursuing the achievement of the GIDEON goals specified in the GIDEON policy document. GIDEON also expresses the need to monitor the progress of implementing its goals. However, there is a lack of knowledge and methods to monitor GIDEON goals realization. The practical applicability of the proposed assessment view has been demonstrated by its implementation in the Dutch SDI case. The development of the assessment view phase was hampered by the problem to reach consensus on the specific assessment indicators. This was because the Dutch SDI goals were too vaguely defined which led to multiple interpretations of what exactly is going to be achieved by the Dutch SDI. These difficulties hampered also the evaluation phase due to the limited number of appropriate indicators. These results suggest that the precision with which SDI goals are defined substantially impact the reliability and relevance of the assessment results. The assessment view was evaluated by its potential users. The group of potential users consisted of people actively involved in creating, managing and using the Dutch SDI. The results of this evaluation indicate that the users agree with its design and its applicability to assess to what extent SDI reach their goals. However, in the Dutch SDI case, the appropriateness of the final list of indicators was a matter of concern. The presented assessment view is designed in a generic way i.e. assuming that SDI goals are defined and the organizations that participate in SDI creation are known, the method can be applied to measure the extent of goals realization of any SDI e.g. INSPIRE. @en

The motives for building SDIs are often based on anticipated benefits for society, economy, and environment. According to those widely articulated, but rarely proven benefits, SDI coordinators have been defining more specific objectives to be achieved by their SDIs. However, there is a limited number of assessment approaches able to demonstrate if SDIs indeed realize the intended goals. In this article we develop, apply and evaluate an assessment view for evaluating the extent to which SDIs realize their goals. The assessment view has been developed stepwise using the Multi-view SDI assessment framework (Grus et al., 2007) as a guideline. The method of developing an assessment view consists of 4 phases: 1) defining an assessment purpose; 2) developing an assessment view; 3) applying an assessment view; 4) evaluating the extent to which SDI realize its goals. Phase 1 focuses on stating the purpose of the proposed assessment view. Based on the analysis of various assessment models and approaches (Chelimsky, 1997; Hansen, 2005; Grus et al., 2007) it has been stated that the purpose of the proposed assessment view is to answer the question: to what degree has the SDI goals has been realized? Phase 2 focuses on developing the assessment view. The development of the assessment view consists of 6 steps: 1) identifying SDI goals; 2) compiling a long list of potential indicators; 3) identifying SDI stakeholders; 4) organizing a workshop; 5) selecting and matching the indicators with SDI goals; 6) formulating an assessment view. Phase 3 focuses on applying the formulated assessment view by measuring the values of the selected indicators. Phase 4 focuses on interpreting the meaning of the indicators values measured in the previous phase. The developed assessment view has been tested in the Dutch SDI. In 2008, the Dutch government approved the GIDEON document as a policy aiming at the implementation of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in the Netherlands (VROM, 2008). The execution of GIDEON should take place by pursuing the achievement of the GIDEON goals specified in the GIDEON policy document. GIDEON also expresses the need to monitor the progress of implementing its goals. However, there is a lack of knowledge and methods to monitor GIDEON goals realization. The practical applicability of the proposed assessment view has been demonstrated by its implementation in the Dutch SDI case. The development of the assessment view phase was hampered by the problem to reach consensus on the specific assessment indicators. This was because the Dutch SDI goals were too vaguely defined which led to multiple interpretations of what exactly is going to be achieved by the Dutch SDI. These difficulties hampered also the evaluation phase due to the limited number of appropriate indicators. These results suggest that the precision with which SDI goals are defined substantially impact the reliability and relevance of the assessment results. The assessment view was evaluated by its potential users. The group of potential users consisted of people actively involved in creating, managing and using the Dutch SDI. The results of this evaluation indicate that the users agree with its design and its applicability to assess to what extent SDI reach their goals. However, in the Dutch SDI case, the appropriateness of the final list of indicators was a matter of concern. The presented assessment view is designed in a generic way i.e. assuming that SDI goals are defined and the organizations that participate in SDI creation are known, the method can be applied to measure the extent of goals realization of any SDI e.g. INSPIRE. @en