Quang T. answered • 07/30/19
GIS professional and Engineer with 5+ years of experience
You compare the data digitized on your map to data which you accept to be accurate. The map layer you consider accurate is considered your point of reference.
The industry standard is to compare one's digitization to data collected from a survey (e.g. geotagging with GPS). Professionally, I usually do an overlay of the map I created with a map layer I feel confident has accurate location markers (it's been verified through someone marking it with a GPS unit). Academically, I overlayed my map with a basemap. It's not technically considered accurate but got the job done. The main point is that your measure of accuracy is dependent on the context of your point of reference.
