Developing a Conceptual Framework for GIS Audit in an Enterprise Setting

Abstract

GIS plays an important role in an organization by ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and better spatial data management. It is used by a wide range of organizations that leverage location data for informed decision making. The extent to which GIS is utilized in an organization should be audited to ensure monitoring and evaluation. This provides information that allows the organization to access and improve overall GIS performance. Existing applications like Slim GIM, URISA GIS CMM and PSD GMI are used to assess GIS maturity capability in an organization. While auditing is centered on a complete monitoring and evaluation of entire GIS system establishment, maturity capability applications are designed to assess organization’s ability to carry out specific GIS operations. These tools can however be time consuming and need to be calibrated for meaningful result and customized for different domains in order to meet user’s need. The focus of this paper is to develop a conceptual model for GIS audit. Through review of literature, four main categories of parameters that can be used for GIS audit were identified namely: Data quality, Software utilization, GIS competencies and Procedures. The parameters generally relate to the basic GIS components. For each of the category, a number of minor parameters have been identified. The conceptual framework will be a good basis for developing a GIS audit checklist.