Esperanto, Klingon, or Other: Metadata Implications for Global Marine Observations

Citation Information

Title:  Esperanto, Klingon, or Other: Metadata Implications for Global Marine Observations
Presenter: John Graybeal
Conference Information: Oceans 2006
Date: 2006.09.22
Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Abstract

For two years, the Marine Metadata Interoperability (MMI) project has focused on improving marine data systems interoperability. Through community organizing and technical development, MMI has broadened awareness of the problems, increased community participation in its solutions, and advanced efforts toward interoperable data systems design.

These universal themes match MMI's vision and mission, and demand an open cultural and technical approach. In this presentation we pursue the following questions:

• How do we ensure the technical needs and perspectives of the international marine data management community are well met? 
• What cultural challenges must we overcome to engage the widest possible membership and participation? 
• How can we contribute to a truly common observing infrastructure, and not just theoretical ideas?

Good practices in data management, metadata, and engineering all represent international ambitions. Although funding sources for the Marine Metadata Interoperability project have been exclusively American, the project has always had international participation and flavor. Our original Steering Committee included international membership (Roy Lowry, of the Britsh Oceanographic Data Centre), and several of our technical contributors are not from the United States. In presentations and meetings in 2005 in Brest, France, and Sardinia, Italy, the Principal Investigator found eager listeners and much agreement on goals and methods.

That said, the project is not yet a consistent leader in the realm of international community participation. As a key element of many architectural and metadata development processes in the U.S., it is important that MMI make the necessary internation connections to ensure maximum interoperability across all data systems. What are these connections, how will we make them, and how will the results lead to a better global observing system for the world’s oceans?  Our efforts will go forward on three fronts.

Technical work must be consistent with international activities, cognizant of those activities, and adoptable by them. Data management takes many forms, depending on resources and needs, and MMI must address all the different levels of sophstication and semantic interaction. One obvious consideration is linguistic—despite the mantra that science is performed in English, local languages will always be a staple in scientific endeavors. So MMI technical solutions must be language-friendly. And to the degree data systems are developed differently in different environments, MMI must be attentive to those differences.