By: Michal Smolkowski
Abstract:
The research has an investigative character. Its main objective is to prove the hypothesis that “Lineage is more than data about data”.
Thesis brings in new lineage process driven approach, where on contrary to the current lineage definition the key feature is process, not geo-data. This leads to introducing a new lineage definition and solutions towards prove the hypothesis. After defining the scope of lineage the list of technical requirements for the potential lineage application was created. It was done from the management point of view. The technical requirements list is influenced by the following aspects: new lineage definition, configuration management and potential data quality benefits that lineage could support.
To show possibilities of using the process driven approach in practice, prototype lineage application was proposed. This is a Windows based application. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 program was used to create it. Application fulfils selected requirements satisfactory. Next research objective is application testing. It was done by analyzing a randomly selected GIS project, by means of two indicators:
1. Time – Time needed for fill metadata for data sets generated on different levels of management.
2. Data importance – possibility for setting data importance parameter from management point of view.
The results confirmed that lineage highly improve the overall management of geo-data. The testing part proved the research hypothesis. Moreover, lineage supports benefits described in the introduction part, which are:
• Improvement in overall geo-data workflow,
• Providing possibility of indicating geo-data importance,
• Improvement in overall geo-data quality,
• Communicating processing steps within geo-data workflow.
However further lineage and lineage technology development should take place, therefore at the end of the report the number of suggestions are put forward.
Keywords: lineage, data quality, GIS project.