National Academies Press: OpenBook

Licensing Geographic Data and Services (2004)

Chapter: Appendix E: Glossary

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
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Appendix E
Glossary


“BEST EFFORTS” CLAUSE.

A clause that says that the licensee will use its "best effort" to exercise its contract rights in ways that preserve the licensor's ability to earn revenues from additional licenses or sales.

BRIGHT-LINE RESTRICTION.

A restriction in a contract that is easy and unambiguous to apply. Measurable quantities—7.2 meters, 1000 Angstroms—are an example.

BUSINESS-TO-GOVERNMENT PURCHASING SYSTEMS.

Systems that enable automated purchasing of standardized commercial products by government.


CADASTRAL DATA.

Data that describe the rights and interests in property.

CLICK-WRAP LICENSE

(see also SHRINK-WRAP LICENSE). A license setting forth the terms under which a vendor sells a right to use a product; the license typically accompanies the electronic file containing the licensed data, or is on the vendor’s Web site.

COPYRIGHT.

Exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, and sell works such as databases, datasets, maps, images and other works that incorporate creative expression, and software; copyright will not protect individual

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×

facts or even compilations of facts that do not have an original selection and arrangement


DATA.

Facts and other raw material that may be processed into useful information.

DATA BROKERAGES.

Institutions that enable users to search for previously licensed data.

DIGITAL LINE GRAPH.

Line-map information in digital form.


FOUNDATION DATA.

Geographic data at the foundation of government business: terrain (elevation) data, orthoimagery, and geodetic control (see separate definitions of the last two).

FRAMEWORK DATA.

Frequently used data in many government applications, including transportation networks; political, administrative, and census boundaries; hydrology; cadastral data; and natural resources data.


GEODETIC CONTROL.

Common reference system for establishing coordinate positions (e.g., latitude, longitude, elevation) for geographic data.

GEOGRAPHIC DATA.

Any location-based data or facts that result from observation or measurement, or are acquired by standard mechanical, electronic, optical, or other sensors.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION.

Geographic data or works without distinction, which may encompass, but is not limited to (1) location-based measurements and observations obtained through human cognition or through such technologies as satellite remote sensing, aerial photography, Global Positioning System, and mobile technologies; and (2) location-based information transformed as images, photographs, maps, models, and other visualizations. Geographic data and works are not strictly location-based but also may include, for example, spatial relationships, descriptions or attributes of geographic features, metadata, and additional types of information that are arranged, categorized, or accessed in reference to their geographic or spatial location. Such information is typically in digital form and may be contained in databases.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION COMMONS.

A system for making geographic data and works openly and freely accessible to the public over the Internet. A geographic information commons may include both public domain (i.e., free from any use restrictions) and open access content (i.e., content openly available for others to access, use, and copy, and often to make derivative works although some limited restrictions may apply).

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION MARKETPLACE.

A system for making geographic data and works available for sale over the Internet.

GEOGRAPHIC SERVICES.

Processes of obtaining, processing, or providing geographic data or geographic works. As used in this volume, the term refers to the provision of access to and use of preexisting data or databases, such as subscription to a particular online geo-based processing capability or subscription to a database allowing downloads when desired. In some contexts, the term “services” may connote geographic data or works provided for a single client, according to that client’s specifications.

GEOGRAPHIC WORKS.

Works incorporating geographic data that have been collected, aggregated, manipulated, or transformed in some manner. Examples include datasets and databases, and other products derived from geographic data, including but not limited to maps, models, and other visualizations involving geographic data.


HYDROLOGY DATA.

Location, geometry, and flow characteristics of rivers, lakes, and other surface waters.


INFORMATION COMMONS.

Public domain content (free from any legal rights protection, e.g., ideas, publicly known facts, and intellectual works in which copyright has expired) and open access content (openly available to anyone but some use conditions are controlled by license).


LICENSE or LICENSING (as used in this report).

A transaction or arrangement (usually a contract, in which there is an exchange of value) in which the acquiring party (i.e., the licensee) obtains information with restrictions on the licensee’s rights to use or transfer geographic information.


MANDATE.

A required function that is defined by law, typically statute, administrative code, or case law.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×

MARGINAL COST.

The cost of providing a copy to an additional user.

METADATA.

Information about data; for example, it might record such details as the collector, the sensor used, and when the data were collected (see Federal Geographic Data Committee, 1998, Data Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata, available at <http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/documents/standards/metadata/v2_0698.pdf>).

MISSION.

Either a discretionary function or an approach to accomplishing a mandated function that is carried out as part of a strategic or operational direction.


NATIONAL SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE.

Technologies, policies, and people necessary to promote sharing of geographic data throughout all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the academic community.1


OLIGOPOLY.

A form of imperfect competition in which there are relatively few firms, each of which must take into account the reactions of its rivals to its own behavior (adapted from W.W. Norton and Company, 2003, Glossary. Available at <http://www.wwnorton.com/college/econ/stiglitz/gloss.htm>).

ONTOLOGY.

An explicit formal specification of how to represent objects, concepts, and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest, and the relationships among them.

OPEN ACCESS CONTENT (as used in this report.)

Content openly available for others to access, use, and copy, and often to make derivative works, although some limited restrictions may apply. Typical restrictions may include preventing users from removing creator attribution from content, imposing identical license terms on any derived works, barring commercial use without permission, and liability limitations. We note that this definition does not necessarily conform to the use of the phrase “open access” in other contexts, including scientific publishing.

ORTHOIMAGE.

A specially processed image prepared from an aerial photograph or a remotely sensed image that combines the accuracy of a traditional line map with the detail of an aerial image.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×

OWNERSHIP OF GEOGRAPHIC DATA (as used in this report).

With reference to a vendor or licensor, the owner is in possession of information that is not publicly known and holds the information as a trade secret. In the case of information to which copyright applies, the licensor is the owner of the copyright. With reference to a licensee, the licensee has possession of a copy of the information and has exclusive or nonexclusive rights to use and make the information available to others without restriction.


PUBLIC DOMAIN INFORMATION (as used in this report).

Information that is not protected by patent, copyright, or any other legal right, and is accessible to the public without contractual restrictions on redistribution or use.

PURCHASE (as used in this report).

A transaction or arrangement (usually a contract, in which there is an exchange of value) in which the purchaser of the geographic data (which may be contained in a geographic work) obtains unlimited rights to use, copy, and disseminate the geographic data.


RASTER DATA.

Organization of a geographic space into cells, with each cell containing attribute measures (e.g., reflectivity, elevation, frequency, concentration). Each cell in the grid is of equal size and the cell density establishes the spatial resolution of the grid.


SECONDARY USERS.

Those who are not the intended direct beneficiaries of the government data as defined by the mandates and missions of the agency but who nevertheless access government data and use it directly.

SERVICES (as used in this report).

The processes of obtaining, processing, or providing geographic information (see GEOGRAPHIC SERVICES).

SHRINK-WRAP LICENSE (see also CLICK-WRAP LICENSE).

A license setting forth the terms under which a vendor sells a right to use a product. The license is typically printed on the packaging containing the medium on which the data are delivered.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×

TERTIARY USERS.

downstream users who do not directly acquire data from government but gain access through others who may merely pass it on or have made major changes to it.

TRANSACTION COSTS.

Costs that include, but are not limited to, time spent on internal meetings, negotiations with vendors, review by lawyers, and the logistics of copying and distributing data to any employee who requests it.


UPLIFT RIGHTS.

Conditions in a license that allow future purchases by specified parties under specified terms and conditions without the need to negotiate a new license.


VALUE CHAIN.

A series of steps in which value is added to raw data through such actions as processing, analysis, and enhanced presentation.

VECTOR DATA.

Representation of real-world themes such as addresses (points), road networks (lines), or land parcels (polygons). The location and shape of the polygon, line, or point is determined by the coordinate position (e.g., latitude/longitude) of its node(s).


WEB SERVICES.

Self-contained, self-describing, modular applications that can be published, located, and invoked across the Web. Web services perform functions that can be anything from simple requests to complicated business processes. Once a Web service is deployed, other applications (and other Web services) can discover and invoke the deployed service (Source: Open GIS Consortium On-Line Glossary, at <http//:www.opengis.org>).

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×
Page 273
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×
Page 274
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×
Page 275
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×
Page 276
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×
Page 277
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Glossary." National Research Council. 2004. Licensing Geographic Data and Services. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11079.
×
Page 278
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Geographic data are used in all sectors of society to support a huge range of applications ranging from emergency response to land-use planning to location-based services. In the past, government agencies typically acquired ownership of such data from private-sector and other data producers and distributed these data without restriction. Licensing--whereby the producer may restrict redistribution--has emerged as an alternative business model that agencies must now consider among a suite of procurement options. The report highlights licensing perspectives and experiences of major stakeholder groups and examines the pros and cons of licensing. It concludes that licensing may be a viable option in some instances and advises agencies on how to best serve societal interests.

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