Recent Metadata News

The MMI Project is pleased to report an MMI-based paper, Semantic mediation of vocabularies for ocean observing systems, has been accepted for publication in the journal Computers & Geosciences. Co-authored by John Graybeal, Anthony Isenor, and Carlos Rueda, the paper describes how semantic mediation of vocabularies is needed for any diverse ocean observing system, and the semantic framework and technologies introduced by MMI. It includes an explanation of the MMI Ontology Registry and Repository, describing many of its features, present uses, and possible future uses.

This paper serves as a simple basic introduction to semantic tools and mediation, an overview of MMI's semantic framework and tools, and a great citation for the MMI ORR work that has been funded by NSF and supported by MMI's staff and many volunteers.

The Division of Ocean Sciences released a new Data and Sample Policy on May 24, 2011. This document describes the requirements for contributing data and samples to national data centers. In general, it requires that primary data collected under NSF/OCE funded projects be submitted to the appropriate data center within 2 years of collection.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and Federal Geographic Data Committee have collaborated on the release of Version 3.0 of "Modernization Roadmap for the Geospatial Platform." Released in August 2010, this document outlines a place-based approach for managing all geospatial data in the United States.

A particularly interesting element of this release is the wiki designed to discuss the platform, geoplatform.ideascale.com. The wiki supports open conversation on the nature and key features of the geospatial platform, and has attracted a number of sophisticated ideas and comments about the role of standards, tools, and other elements toward making a common, effective approach to geospatial data.

From: http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/20/12/abstract/i1052-5173-20-...

GSA Today

Article, pp. 4-10 | Full Text | PDF (2.6MB)

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) has commissioned a white paper to advise it on its future directions for Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), a rubric that includes the creation, use, and management of such resources as controlled vocabularies, thesauri, gazetteers, and ontologies. Before a final draft is produced, GBIF invites an initial public review of the first draft. The draft may be found at http://bit.ly/GBIFKOS_2010-11-25-0400 and the mechanism for commenting at http://bit.ly/GBIFKOS_Comments which is a page on the GBIF Community Site.

The FGDC Coastal and Marine Spatial Data Subcommittee, chaired by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), developed the Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS), and is currently inviting the public sector, those involved in coastal and marine ecology and management, to review and comment on a draft of this standard. Through a common terminology, CMECS provides the vocabulary needed to term ecological and habitat units. The standard also provides the marine community with "a uniform protocol for identifying, characterizing and naming ecological units in support of monitoring, protection, and restoration of unique biotic assemblages, protected species, critical habitat, and important ecosystem components."

On August 25, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) and the Smart Ocean Sensor Consortium (SOSC) announced in a press release that they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance sensor observing systems for the oceans community. The two organizations will explore "joint outreach and marketing activities to raise awareness and interest in smart sensor systems and Sensor Web Enablement". Their first collaboration will focus on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's (MBARI) PUCK protocol for hydrographic sensor configuration. The PUCK protocol specification has been submitted to the OGC as a candidate standard.

In August, the Global Biodiversity Initiative Facility (GBIF) Secretariat launched the GBIF Community Site, a free social networking site to enhance communication among researchers, data publishers and users, and everyone interested in Biodiversity Informatics. All are welcome to join and "share information about events, open calls, product releases, [and] collaboration opportunities in biodiversity data." There are also a number of collaboration tools available in the site: work groups, (micro)blogs, community news, online chat, file and image sharing, to name a few. For more information, visit: http://www.gbif.org/communications/resources/platforms/gbif-community-site/. 

Several members of the MMI community have contributed to chapters in the new book Coastal Informatics: Web Atlas Design and Implementation, author(s)/editor(s): Dawn Wright (Oregon State University, USA); Ned Dwyer (University College Cork, Ireland); Valerie Cummins (University College Cork, Ireland), 2010. The book "reviews and presents the latest developments in the emerging field of coastal web atlases through a series of case studies." It also discusses "making underlying geographic databases interoperable." The Coastal Atlas Interoperability chapter (pp 53-79), co-authored by Karen Stocks and Anthony Isenor from the Guides Team as well as others, was formed in part from information in the MMI Guides that are available on our site.