The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008
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least annually, and will be maintained for permanent public
access.
A primary goal of Clearinghouse is the ability to find spatial
data throughout the entire community, not one site at a time
which is distributed on network and includes a registry of
servers. Note that clearinghouse will not operate without
Metadata
4.2 Spatial Information and E-Government
Different aspects form relation between spatial information and
E-Govemment concept in which the following items are in
great importance:
a. From G2C point of view
• Establishing public sites for presenting spatial information
■ Presenting spatial information trough internet and national
web
■ Providing a system for public access to geo-spatial
information such as postal code, urban development
plans, urban services (infrastructure, emergency, etc) and
cadastre
■ Establishing a comprehensive cadastral system
■ Providing a framework for free access to statistical and
administrative information
■ Providing public access to thematic information such as
boundaries, roads, emergency and rescue centers,
geological and meteorological information and so on.
b. From G2B point of view
■ Establishing national clearinghouse for demonstrating
information about spatial products and services around
country.
■ Providing a national framework for electronic shopping
from geo-spatial data providers and dealers.
c. From G2G point of view
■ Collaboration for creating national spatial data
infrastructure.
■ Establishing national clearinghouse for demonstrating
information about spatial products and services around
country.
■ International cooperation in regional and global level for
data, knowledge and technology transfer.
■ Collaboration in global map project.
5. ROLE OF NATIONAL CARTOGRAPHIC CENTRE
OF IRAN IN DELIVERING E-GOVERNMENT
National Cartographic Centre of Iran the same as the other
national mapping agencies, is associated with geodesy,
surveying and cartographic activities. During the last decade, it
charged with responsibility of creating and managing digital
products across the entire country. This means its work is
oriented toward the creation of consistent and homogenous
digital geo-databases. This enables NCC to provide similar
information across entire countries, while also enabling
governments, businesses and individuals, the ability to create
policies, operations and expectations of a countrywide nature.
This value cannot be underestimated. It is the seed for designing
development programs, managerial strategies for environment,
land use, population and other national policy initiatives.
Without such data, country is a collection of places with no real
understanding, no basis for national decision making relative to
land resources and has no consistent and useful means for
protecting and understanding itself.
It is a proven fact that any government who wants to be on the
leading edge of the future should be investing in its national
mapping agency. The reasons behind this fact are:
■ National mapping is a foundation for delivering e-
govemment,
■ It provides the capability for establishing sustainable
policy making, development and monitoring framework,
■ It is highly linked to the statistical organisation within
country, providing an understanding of people to place,
■ It enables national infrastructure decision making for
projects requiring consistent and homogenous data,
enabling them to be planned, built and operated.
According to this, the main role NCC have to play in E-
Govemment scenario can be considered as providing common
framework for access to geo-spatial information; something
which could be named as the GEO Portal. The main purpose of
this Portal is to provide access to geospatial data and
information. Obviously this is a co-operative project between
several national, regional and local agencies and communities
and has to be financed by the government. Note that this project
can only be started after presenting a clear and consistent
strategy for managing geospatial information by relevant
authorities mainly the supreme council for surveying which acts
under direct supervision of deputy of the Iranian President.
In long term view, NCC will be transformed from a mapping
agency to an IT policy and service provider that will not be a
smooth and easy way.
5.1 Challenges ahead for NCC
NCC faces a series of important challenges in order to continue
successfully evolving into an efficient and up-to-date IT-based
government agency in the future Iranian E-govemment
structure. Some of the most pressing factors can be summarised
in the following groups:
* Budgetary barriers: One of the main challenges for NCC
is to find the means to recoup investments and develop
the mechanisms for longer-term budgetary planning.
Recent emphasis of government to decrease the budget of
agencies and organization caused serious problems for
NCC to invest in frameworks to exploit the existing
infrastructure of standards, content, IT system layers,
access mechanisms, and interface.
■ Monitoring, evaluation and quality control: Since NCC
has the responsibility of creating a quality assurance
framework for the whole geo-spatial information
produced in country; it should be figured out how to
accomplish this task in new IT environment. It will need
strong formal tools for decision-making and monitoring
activities both in order to monitor activities of
governmental and non-governmental partners and to
evaluate the quality of data to be shared.
■ Privacy and consumer protection issues: In long term a
major part of Geo-Portal would be information about land
and property registration which contain citizen identity
and privet information. In this regard NCC needs to pay
close attention to privacy and consumer protection issues.
■ Collaboration problems: Information linkages across
government agencies are still at their pilot stage.
However, political interests and personal views have
