DIVE Into Metadata With MMI

Citation

Neiswender, C, Bermudez, LE, Galbraith, NG, Graybeal, J (2007) DIVE into Metadata with MMI, Eos Trans. AGU, 88 (52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract IN41A-0069.

Abstract

Within research environments, good, usable data is paramount to scientific success. However, extremely diverse data is often distributed across many institutions, collected in a variety of ways, and stored in dissimilar systems. Standards-based interoperability is the key to harnessing this variety into a strategic set of usable data. As a community collaboration, the Marine Metadata Interoperability project (MMI) exists to promote the exchange, integration and use of marine data through enhanced data publishing, discovery, documentation and accessibility. To accomplish these goals, MMI has established a collaborative web environment (http://marinemetadata.org), informative guides, workshops on current topics, vocabulary working groups, and interoperable projects (OOSTethys and the OGC Oceans Interoperability Experiment, http://www.oostethys.org/). In January 2008, MMI will launch a new initiative: the DIVE Strike Force. Called DIVE for Discover, Interrogate, Validate and Educate. The MMI strike force initiative will facilitate concentrated research into a specific area needed by the marine science community. Each focused team of scientists, technologists and data managers will work to comprehensively review and explain existing capabilities and best practices, comparing existing solutions for the community. For this first DIVE Strike Force, team efforts will be focused on metadata tools. The Tools Strike Force will: * Discover available tools for the creation and publication of metadata and metadata vocabularies; * Interrogate the community about each tool, assessing criteria to be agreed upon, for example the capabilities of each, strengths and weaknesses, level of adoption, and where each tool would best be used; * Validate the best and most applicable tools objectively; * Educate the wider marine metadata community using the MMI webpage, and other resources as appropriate. Participants in each DIVE will be solicited from throughout the community, and involvement of solution providers (e.g., tools creators and vendors) will be especially encouraged. You can see previews of the dynamic DIVE Strike Force project, and the initial Tools Strike Force activity, at http://marinemetadata.org/dive. Ongoing funding for MMI is provided by the National Science Foundation through grant OCE 0607372.