Advocacy for External Quality in GIS

Nowadays, geographical resources (both data and applications) are increasingly being accessible via search engines or web services. As a consequence, users must choose among a set of available resources the ones that best fit their needs. However, users neophytes are currently unable to determine a priori (i.e., before acquisition and use), whether a resource is adequate for its intended usage. Although metadata, if available, allow users to obtain information about internal data quality, this metadata is specified in terms of the data producer, who does not know all the intended uses for the resource. This information is not sufficient for users to evaluate the quality of resources in relation to their needs, i.e., the external quality. In this paper, we propose a method that takes into account the user profile, the application domain, the requirements, and intended use to assess, a priori, the quality of the resources.