1. Find Data from Providers

Actor(s)

A scientist or other investigator who wants to find data of interest.

Background

The scientist, Ann, is looking for data that describes the extent of the oxygen dead zone in a particular location (the Gulf of Mexico).

User Scenario

The scientist, Ann, calls up an application on her computer. She is prompted with a form to fill out to specify the characteristics of the data. One of the fields is the data Subject. The scientist sees a drop-down menu with relatively broad terms, for example like those in the IOOS Keywords Vocabulary. The context for the keywords (their source vocabulary) is also described on the screen. These keywords are much more broad than the scientists' search interest, but she follows the instructions and selects an appropriate general keyword. The system responds by providing another level of relevant keywords, somewhat more detailed. Ann can select any of these keywords, which may yield a third level of detail, and so on. The more detailed keywords may be from other vocabularies; their sources are represented in the interface. Descriptions can be presented for any keyword. Multiple keywords can be selected, even at different levels. The search will attempt to match any of the selections. When Ann hits the search button, the application identifies the selected keywords and their source vocabularies. The application searches the specified resources (for example, the Regional Association's data holdings) for individual resources that contain terms that satisfy the selected keywords. Mapping relationships are used to go from the source vocabularies, which were presented to the user, to the target vocabularies, which are maintained by the providers of the resources (the Regional Association's data providers).

Solution Space

Any data search engine or clearinghouse could be made semantically aware to address this use case. Noesis is an example of one search tool with semantic awareness built in. The location may also be specified by another vocabulary, this one referring to gazetteer taxonomies. Similar mapping taxonomies can be applied in this solution space.