SDI Convergence - Nederlandse Commissie voor Geodesie - KNAW

The first phase of the EcoGeo Project (EcoGeo I, in 2006) provided a visual representation
of the overall flows of GI between the main private and public stakeholders of the
geomatic sector in Quebec. Firstly, the EcoGeo I team identified stakeholders involved
on the Quebec market. Secondly, it proposed a new visual tool (called Socioscope) to
represent and analyse GI flows (see section 5).
Based on this previous work, the EcoGeo phase II has two main goals. The first one is
to improve the first version of Socioscope, taking into consideration the entire life-cycle
of GI products in Quebec, and including data collection, production and processing.
This will also permit to define the specific value chain for the GI sector in Quebec. The
second challenging objective is to develop an evaluation model on a test subsector of
the value chain, in order to assess the economic impacts of GI on that selected area.
5. THE SOCIOSCOPE PROTOTYPE
5.1. GI flow modelling
The GI flow modelling of Socioscope is based on three steps: (1) a literature review
and analysis; (2) a Delphi survey focused on GI flows; and, (3) a focus group of experts
on the same issue. The primary private and public stakeholders have been involved in
the process from the onset.
This analysis has highlighted the following details:
– GI flows could have various forms according to the organisations involved (sale,
loan, gift, donation, exchange, sharing and other);
– a significant number of GI flows are based on non-monetary transactions, and some
of them are managed on an informal basis;
– for a few sub-sectors such a GI flows are not known at all;
– these GI flows are quite complex and their overall analysis and representation would
require a complete survey involving all the stakeholders.
180
Figure 1: Global representation of GI flows within the geomatic sector in Quebec.