ESRI ArcUser Magazine July-Sept. Integrating Quality Assurance into the GIS Project Life Cycle GIS databases evolve constantly. From paper maps through the digital conversion process to data maintained in a database, GIS data are being constantly transformed.
Poor data negate the usefulness of the technology.
Sophisticated software and advanced hardware cannot accomplish anything without specific, reliable, accurate geographic data. GIS technology requires clean data. To maximize the quality of GIS databases, a quality assurance plan must be integrated with all aspects of the GIS project. The fundamentals of quality assurance never change. Completeness, validity, logical consistency, physical consistency, referential integrity, and positional accuracy are the cornerstones of the QA plan.