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The topographic and cartographic databases of the national territory of Slovenia are one the main national spatial data collected by the Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia in addition to the real estate data and the national reference system. The maintenance of topographic and cartographic databases (i.e., databases and maps) is carried out on a cyclical basis using several standard methods (aerial photography, laser scanning, etc.) and at several levels of detail and scales (from 1:5000 to 1:1.000.000). As those databases become outdated during their maintenance cycles, the ongoing voluntary response of users has become an increasingly important potential source for maintenance over the last decade. This is reflected in the so-called Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), which can be contributed voluntarily by professionals or layman through various media channels (e-mail, telephone, dedicated VGI collection applications, social networking sites, as well as through various online communication applications such as Viber). VGI can be of various types: textual descriptions, annotations on before prepared maps, line sketches of the changes, photographs, videos, or just a verbal description of the change over the telephone.
The Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia regularly carries out the maintenance of various topographic and cartographic databases that enable the production of national topographic maps at different scales. It has defined procedures for updating, controlling, promoting and distributing the various national topographic databases. The purpose of this task is to define in detail the procedures and activities that will enable the collection and processing of VGI to be integrated into the existing processes of the national topographic service. The processes and activities will be described in detail in a process model that will define the support for the maintenance of the national topographic databases with VGI. The process model will address the following aspects in detail:
(1) the organisation of stakeholders and the organisation of the service for topographic VGI gathering,
(2) the content of topographic VGI and its control,
(3) communication methods and channels and their integration,
(4) information support (for receiving and organising contributions, for processing and for forwarding the results to the existing topographic service),
(5) the integration of topographic VGI with the data model of the national topographic and cartographic databases, and
(6) regulation (e.g. restrictions in the scope of existing legislation).
The aim of the process model development for the collection, processing and dissemination of the topographic VGI to the national topographic service is to maximise the response of volunteers through appropriate communication planning and modelling so that such information can be integrated into the regular up-dating process of the national topographic databases as soon as possible.