"Metadata for Ocean Scientists" Tutorial at Ocean Sciences 2008

Event Description

MMI proposes to hold free metadata tutorials that are divided into 30-minute modules at the Ocean Sciences 2008 meeting. The modules will be: Introduction to Metadata; Introduction to Controlled Vocabularies, Taxonomies and Ontologies; Submitting Metadata to a Clearinghouse; and Metadata Best Practices. Two modules will be held during each lunch break on Tuesday and Wednesday. All four modules will be provided on Thursday evening.

Background

The Marine Metadata Interoperability (MMI) Project funded by NSF OCE grant # 0607372, is interested in holding a workshop to help scientists with their metadata needs at the Ocean Sciences meeting.

The mission of MMI is to promote the exchange, integration and use of marine data through enhanced: data publishing, discovery, documentation and accessibility. Each of the collaborating Principal Investigators in MMI are, or have been, leaders of large, related projects, and their organizations are all involved in significant data management activities. The lead Principal Investigator, John Graybeal from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, is a member of the Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (ORION) Cyberinfrastructure Committee and the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Data Management and Communications (DMAC) Metadata Expert Team. The other Principal Investigators of MMI are: Philip S. Bogden - Southeastern Universities Research Association, Matthew K. Howard - Texas A&M University, Andrew R. Maffei - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Karen I. Stocks - University of California at San Diego. The MMI project includes a community-based website (http://marinemetadata.org ) with specific metadata guidance, web applications, stand alone tools, workshops, and collaborative projects demonstrating interoperability between data systems.

Tutorial Details

The modules for the tutorial will be as follows:

• Introduction to Metadata – In this module, we will help scientists (and their teams) learn to use metadata to document their data sets. We will use typical oceanographic data sets to demonstrate this process. We encourage all scientists and data technicians who want to understand basic metadata principles to attend this training.
• Introduction to Controlled Vocabularies, Taxonomies and Ontologies – In this module, we will introduce scientists to approaches that help reduce semantic interoperability problems between different data systems. Controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and ontologies are three different mechanisms that can help scientists find the data that they need – with minimal confusion about what different terms mean.
• Submitting Metadata to a Clearinghouse –

  In this module, we will help scientists submit (or publish) their metadata to the major metadata clearinghouses (NSDI/FGDC, Geospatial Onestop, NBII, OBIS, and GCMD) by providing an overview of each. (We may also provide a table that can be used as a reference later - hardcopy or online.) In the overview of each clearinghouse we will address: a. requirements for use (metadata standards, any required metadata elements, connections...), and b. tools/resources for help publishing to a clearinghouse. We may also present evaluation criteria that we think would be helpful for participants to use when determing which clearinghouse to use. In addition to the overview, we will also use typical oceanographic data sets to demonstrate the submittal process to the Geospatial Onestop.

  Best practices for submitting to a clearinghouse may be identified during preparation of the Overview and may be provided to participants in this and/or the best practices module.

• Metadata Best Practices – In this module, we will present a high-level overview of contemporary practices and standards in metadata. This loosely structured, flexible module will allow ample opportunity for attendees to ask questions about metadata issues facing them and their organizations.