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Advancing science

To be able to study marine processes over extensive space and time domains it is necessary to have access to other investigators' data. For many years, both individual investigators and larger collaborative projects have developed custom systems to manage, and make available, their marine science data. It is at best a challenge, and at worst impossible, for other investigators to query all these sources for useful data. If the investigators are lucky enough to find the data they seek they often cannot obtain enough contextual information to use the data in their research.

Comply with requirements of funding agencies and publishers

Program or project managers, journal publishers or data centers often mandate that collection of data should follow certain procedures, that data should be in certain formats and that it should be well documented. This allows each organization to more easily discover their data, since they can rely on a consistent system for describing the data.

Encourage others to re-use your data, citing your research.

If your data set is well documented and it is available to other researchers, they will be more likely to use your data. Your research and theirs will be complemented, opportunities for collaboration will increase, and the scope of your research will broaden.

MMI can help you

If you are willing to document your data, or you have to do so, then MMI can help you understand the different jargon, and can guide you towards a choice about the best tool or technology available to get your metadata done efficiently. To start, you can read the MMI guides. They are organized from the most basic to the most advanced. Also you can find, in the metadata examples section, descriptions for data sets categorized by oceanographic disciplines.

In addition to services aimed at non-technical users, MMI also creates tools to make the data management process more efficient. Using MMI tools like Voc2OWL, data technologists can increase the interoperability of the scientific data they manage, providing additional benefits to scientific resource providers and users.

Use the MMI site as a collaborative environment

If you are involved in a project related to metadata and interoperability that requires sharing of online documentation and other resources, you can request to have a project folder and a users group created for you. In the project folder you can create other subfolders and add content as appropriate. You can have private and public content. Public content can be commented on by other members of the site, providing you valuable feedback.

Participate and help others

This is a community portal. This means that you can add to, edit, and comment on any of the public documents in this site. We are very interested in your experience with any of the tools, examples and technologies presented here, and your feedback is the most important asset of this site.