By examining the coverage of the subject in the specialised GIS press one was able to generate
the following results:
- With a 28% coverage record SDI is a popular subject choice and the depth of coverage is varied through time.
- There are key weaknesses in dealing with issue of semantics, the treatment of the subject is sparse and
poor compared to the interest in and treatment of, metadata and SDI in general
- The average GIS specialist is much more likely to be aware of the legal context in realising SDI than have
an awareness of the relationship between the costs and benefits
The summation of these led one to rejcect the hypothesis that ignorance will be a major barrier to interoperability.
The finishing up of the dissertation was the end of a long road started some four years ago and represented for me the
realisation of an ambition which I have harboured for many years. Through the course of the study I learned to think and
work on an abstraction level which I hadn’t done so before and thereby created an extra plane upon which one can ply
one’s trade and that does not happen everyday!
The research dissertation, which is in English, can be downloaded
in our Download area.
Brian Kirwan (2005), Is ignorance the real barrier to interoperability, Unigis MSc thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
