International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B6. Istanbul 2004 
Education and Training (GI-NET)". The main aim of this 
network is to promote the use of spatial information and earth 
observation. The network will be active in research and 
development, as well as in education, training and advisory 
services (itenews, 2003). What could be the role of ITC, what 
the role of its international partners in the GI-NET? One of the 
action points identified in the workshop “Joint Education 
Partnership Network" held at ITC in December 2003 was “to 
inventorize current facilities, resources, procedures, and 
demands”. 
2. Action 
We try to use any information source that may disclose 
quantitative data on topographic mapping; topographic 
mapping being understood in a broader sense than merely 
producing and publishing paper maps but rather as building and 
maintaining digital topographic databases in an SDI setting. To 
this end we decided to also send out a questionnaire, despite of 
the known disadvantages of doing so. We addressed the 
questionnaire to ITC's partners in the GI-NET, to national 
mapping agencies in many developing countries, and to ITC 
alumni who had completed our Geoinformatics or Geo- 
information Management courses since 2000. 
3. Questionnaire 
The Questionnaire interrogates the following aspects in 5 
sections: 
(1) General information about the organization: 
(2) National context of topographic mapping: 
e State of a national policy on geo-information (GI) 
management 
e Who is in charge of the national GI management 
mandate? 
e National Metadata and Clearinghouses 
e Geodetic control 
e Human resources development 
e. Current human resources recruitment from 
e Expected needs of human resources 
(3) Provided map products: 
e Paper maps and/or digital maps (vector data 
symbolized and at a fixed scale) and/or object- 
oriented (OO) topographic data (seamless, of 
specified resolution) 
e Diversity of products 
e How are data and/or paper maps made accessible to 
users 
e Percentage of land area covered to date by various 
map scales 
e Percentage of land area planned to be covered by 
2010 
eo Type of planned coverage by 2010 and currency: 
e Map contents of the most prominent topographic 
product world wide, ie, a 1:25,000 or 1:50,000 map 
(4) Techniques of Mapping: 
Own production or purchase of value added products 
from international image and service providers 
188 
e Digital maps and paper maps produced from 
topographic databases 
e Primary mapping or revision 
e If primary mapping is done (actual production and 
not purchasing from global vendors), what is the data 
source for mapping/collecting vector data 
e Data source for map revision 
e Revision method 
e Revision techniques 
e Equipment used for mapping 
e Acquisition of elevation data 
e Major bottleneck in meeting production targets 
(5) Miscellaneous: 
e Current funding of topographic mapping 
4. Status 
At the deadline for submitting papers for the ISPRS congress in 
Istanbul we did not receive enough responses yet. Obviously 
we started too late with out mailing, underestimating how busy 
the agendas were of our addressees. The aim of the total survey 
is to compile statistics, identify common problems beyond the 
shortage of funding, and pin point local strengths. It is not our 
intention to produce a catalogue, listing all activities and 
techniques used country by country. As soon as we have a 
sufficient sample size we shall report our findings. 
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