Geospatial data infrastructure portals: Using the national atlas as a metaphor

The concept of geospatial data infrastructure (GDI) has been put into practice in some countries by providing portals allowing users to search for multiple geospatial data sets. Our review and inquiry activities show that current portals suffer from two potential setbacks: inappropriate navigation tools and a lack of supports for users’ understanding. This article defines a new approach to portal development using the atlas as metaphor. This allows the atlas to be used not only to access assorted thematic maps but also to discover data sets. Within the atlas, an information structure plays an important role in organizing the content. Metadata published by providers are incorporated into this structure as metadata summaries. Based upon the topical relevancy of the data, each metadata summary is linked to a specific map within a particular topic. These summaries can be represented as symbols to support discovery tasks, either loosely or strictly defined. Browsing can be used to deal with the first via navigations and map interfaces. Searching can be used to deal with the second via explorer and search presentation interfaces. A working prototype to enable users to browse and search is built as a Flash-based ArclMS client. Whether browsing or searching, users are offered interfaces to effectively assess data suitability.