[Geodata] What is the value of free data?

Sun Sep 13 08:28:47 EDT 2009

Interesting but off topic for this thread.

I was hoping for a follow-up question:  If the data usage has to be  
tracked, how can we track value along with that usage?

If we cannot clearly demonstrate value or clear business cases, free  
data will stay marginal.

Pat.

On Sep 13, 2009, at 4:28 AM, Rafal Wawer wrote:

> Hi Bob,
> Regarding the accessibility of the sensitive datasets. My colleages  
> from the Catholic University of Leuven: Katleen Janssen and Danny  
> Vandenbroucke;  investigate the issues of the access to sensitive  
> data within the framework of European INSPIRE directive and some  
> general SDI projects. They are currently finishing an internal  
> report for the Nature SDIplus project and a scientific paper will  
> follow the report soon. I will announce it on the [geodata] list as  
> soon the text will be released (report) or published (paper).
>
> Best regards:
> Raf
>
> Dr. Rafal Wawer
> K.U.Leuven
> R&D Division SADL (Spatial Application Division)
> Celestijnenlaan 200e bus 2224
> BE-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
> Belgium
> tel. 0032 16 329731
>
>
>
> From: geodata-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:geodata- 
> bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bob Basques
> Sent: 11 September 2009 20:24
> To: Pat Cappelaere; Jonathan Mark
> Cc: geodata at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Geodata] What is the value of free data?
>
> All,
>
> We're in the middle of these same sorts of discussions about making  
> data freely available, both at the City and in the metro area in  
> general.
>
> Here at the City we use the same system for internal and external  
> access, and the extra costs have thus far been marginal to allowing  
> access.   There are some potential problems with this though in the  
> future, in that if a datasets becomes popular, it may impact  
> bandwidth negatively and cause a rethink of the publishing.
>
> One big business need that this solves for us, is in being able to  
> see other regional data owners data since they do the same as we do  
> in the publishing department so we can see each others datasets and  
> not have to worry about keeping a local set available and up to  
> date.  While this is not happening across the board with all  
> regional data owners, more and more are coming online all the time.
>
> A bigger concern is how to share data that is sensitive in nature  
> between jurisdictions, that each agency should have access to but  
> the general public shouldn't.  I know this thread is aimed at the  
> public use, but I would suggest that there are a middle class/level  
> of user, where the data usage needs to be tracked.  Not exactly  
> closed off from viewing, but in many cases for security reasons, the  
> usage needs to be tracked in some form.  This is something that is  
> continuously being wrestled with here.
>
> bobb
>
>
>
> >>> Pat Cappelaere <pat at cappelaere.com> wrote:
> We are doing the same at NASA.  The problem is that it is not
> sustainable over the long run.
> There is a cost to doing this. As money gets tighter, you need to be
> able to justify it.  Hence the need for the business case.
>
> Asking people may or may not work until you build a value model with a
> fairly solid foundation.
>
>
> Can we use the economic value of people and infrastructure within an
> image?  I think that there is a value for a human being.
> Value of trees...water...???
>
> I think that there are population density and infrastructure density
> maps that could be used and then infer a price tag.
>
> any better idea to can get us to some hard metric?
>
> Anyone with experience in that area?
>
> Thanks,
> Pat.
>
>
> On Sep 11, 2009, at 12:29 PM, Mark, Jonathan wrote:
>
> > I don't know what the value of free data is, but at some point in  
> the
> > next while, the City of Vancouver will be soft launching a website
> > from
> > which GIS and other data will be freely available without  
> restrictions
> > on use.  I would expect comments to come back about what types of
> > additional data people would like and have value to them and what  
> they
> > might do with it if we publish it. The data and formats on our site
> > will
> > grow over time.
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >
> > Jonathan Mark, GIS Manager
> > IT Department
> > Financial Services Group
> > City of Vancouver
> > 604-873-7987 phone
> > 604-873-7875 fax
> > vancouver.ca/vanmap
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: geodata-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> > [mailto:geodata-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Wawer
> > Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 8:54 AM
> > To: Pat Cappelaere; geodata at lists.osgeo.org
> > Subject: RE: [Geodata] What is the value of free data?
> >
> > Interesting question indeed, Pat.
> >
> > Well, the old Roman wisdom says, that the item is worth as much as
> > customer wants to pay for it. (-; So I think your first suggestion  
> is
> > close to the objective. (-:
> >
> > For raster it could apply easily, however for vector... these maybe
> > difficult to use, as even the same themes of the same geometric
> > quality
> > (scale) have sometimes extended attributes, which acquisition in the
> > real world is maybe expensive - in this case I would add total  
> cost of
> > the generation of additional information. A good example would be
> > cadaster parcels. The geometry itself is usually accompanied with  
> plot
> > number, but when it comes with additional attributes of owner and  
> 4eg.
> > commercial value -  well, that's completely different story, because
> > you
> > have to finanse the valuation of the parcels and building/connection
> > of
> > the owner database. Other examlpe could be soil or other  
> environmental
> > maps - where number of physical or chemical attributes may grow into
> > huge databases. So cost of the geometry itself may be one thing and
> > the
> > cost of the attributes - other.
> >
> > Best regards:
> > Raf
> >
> > Dr. Rafal Wawer
> > K.U.Leuven
> > R&D Division SADL (Spatial Application Division) Celestijnenlaan  
> 200e
> > bus 2224
> > BE-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
> > Belgium
> > tel. 0032 16 329731
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: geodata-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> > [mailto:geodata-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Pat Cappelaere
> > Sent: 11 September 2009 16:57
> > To: geodata at lists.osgeo.org
> > Subject: [Geodata] What is the value of free data?
> >
> > It is great to make geodata free.  However, we could get more of  
> it if
> > we could quantify the value of that data.
> > We need to justify the business case.
> >
> > Interestingly, for opensource software projects, you can compute the
> > potential cost of developing that software.
> > This is an approximation of the value of that code [but not the  
> value
> > that is enabled by the code] So I am looking for a similar and still
> > imperfect metric.
> >
> > Any suggestion?
> >
> > Cost of similar commercial imagery?
> > Economic value of imaged area?
> > Potential damage assessment (disaster)?
> > Scientific value of imagery?
> >
> > How do we estimate this?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Pat.
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