Metadata standards

Here follows relevant information and discussions for the identification of sets of Metadata which could be supported by iMarine. A specific subset of Metadata, the Business metadata, should be identified for supporting the implementation of the EA-CoP Data Access and Sharing Policies.

The iMarine web infrastructure can support fully or partially different types of metadata according to requirements. I.e. standard widely used among EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. and indispensable for optimized use of the iMarine infrastructure and its many data management and processing capacities; Open Source community committed to support with software components the further development of this standard.

Dublin Core (DC)

The Dublin Core® Metadata Initiative http://dublincore.org is the potential candidate for supporting the business matadata in iMarine.

Darwin Core (DwC)

Darwin Core matadata http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/ are supported by iMarine web infrastructure for handling information related to taxa, their occurrence in nature as documented by observations, specimens, samples, and related information. As per DwC definition ".. It is meant to provide a stable standard reference for sharing information on biological diversity. As a glossary of terms, the Darwin Core is meant to provide stable semantic definitions with the goal of being maximally reusable in a variety of contexts...".

Geographic metadata (ISO/TC211, OGC)

Three main types of geographic abstract metadata (approved or draft) ISO/TC 211 Standards, can be listed:

• ISO 19115:2003 Geographic information – Metadata
  • Part 1 (ISO 19115-1): base ISO metadata standard for the description of geographic information and services.
  • Part 2 (ISO 19115-2): extension for imagery and gridded data & instrument-based data collection. These extensions also include improved descriptions of lineage and processing information.
• ISO 19110: Geographic information – Methodology for Feature Cataloging: description of feature types / coverage usable in association with the ISO 19115 standard.
• ISO 19119: Geographic information - Services: describes the web-services such as the OGC Web-Services (OWS) e.g. WMSSee Workload Management System or Web Mapping Service./WFSWeb Feature Service/WCSWeb Coverage Service/WPS/CSW, usable in association with the ISO 19115 standard.

The ISO 19115 and 19119 are approved by the OGC as abstract metadata specifications.

The ISO 19139 standard defines the XML schema implementation of the above abstract metadata standards.

SDMX

• What SDMX can hold in terms of Metadata?
• Which fields of SDMX can be mapped to Business Metadata and how?

Handling iMarine Business Metadata through selected iMarine Metadata standards

The EA-CoP Data Access and Sharing Policies document contains a proposal for associating all shared datasets in iMarine with a descriptive and standard set of metadata, the business metadata (i.e. ownership and context, authorship, copyright licenses, content description and main features).

• Which should be the most appropriate format?
• Which standards can iMarine support?