Recent Metadata News

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.

Geospatial data that represent observations at a specific time and place often cannot be replicated, and explicitly preserving them helps ensure their availability for future users. In an effort to improve geospatial data preservation research and practice, researchers at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University are developing an online clearinghouse to disseminate information on the preservation of geospatial data. They have put together a brief questionnaire that takes ten to fifteen minues to complete, and will help them address issues relating to this topic.

A team of three Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) researchers has shown the power of the semantic web by developing 40 applications that use datasets from different sources, all available to the public through Data.gov. Data.gov was launched a year ago and has grown from just 47 datasets to over 270,000 (as of May 2010). In June 2009, the RPI team saw Data.gov as a perfect opportunity to "use RDF (Resource Description Framework) and linked data" to explore government data in innovative ways. The RPI Project has demonstrated "how quickly and inexpensively visualization and mash-up applications can be built from government data when it’s put into a web-friendly form." Read the full article at Government Computer News (5/18/2010).

In October 2010, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will require scientists to complete data management plans, submitted as two-page supplementary documents, with all new proposals for NSF funding. This change to data sharing illustrates the importance of publicly funded research that is available to the public and accessible to broad scientific communities. "Science is becoming data-intensive and collaborative," noted Ed Seidel, acting assistant director for NSF's Mathematical and Physical Sciences directorate.

Complete details in the NSF Press Release 10-077 from May 10, 2010.

NEPTUNE Canada (North-East Pacific Time-Series Undersea Networked Experiments) is featured in NatureNews this month, "Undersea Project Delivers Data Flood" (20 April 2010). The NEPTUNE Project, with 800 km of cable connecting a suite of oceanographic instruments on the seafloor, will eventually receive an estimated "60 terabytes per year" of data. NEPTUNE scientists and data managers are "looking for innovative ways of crunching through the data" by making  information available to the public via the internet and collaborating with the international oceanographic community. Image Copyright © 2010 NEPTUNE Canada

SANY published a new book entitled SANY: an open service architecture for sensor networks to investigate "where current trends in technology and society are taking us and how these trends impact our life by helping to build an increasing awareness of environmental issues." The book is available free as a PDF document from their publication release site: http://sany-ip.eu/publications/3317.

The Data Observation Network for Earth (DataOne), supported by U.S. National Science Foundation, is inviting all scientists to participate in an on-line data assessment survey. The 23-question survey takes only 5-10 minutes to complete. Our "responses will help [them] better understand how scientists manage their data and will contribute to building better tools and processes for data preservation." For more information about the survey and to participate, visit http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/aaeg3cfe6. For more information about the DataONE foundation and their mission, visit About DataONE.

The White House recently released an Open Government Directive as another step to ensuring government data is available to the American people and to "promote informed participation by the public." In response to this, the directive states that "within 45 days each agency shall identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets and register those data sets via Data.gov." In addition, these newly registered datasets must be ones that were not previously available for public download.

Academia.edu launched a year ago to help researchers discover "who's researching what", view papers and presentations by fellow researchers, and stay connected in their community. They recently set up a Metadata mailing list. Visit this link: http://lists.academia.edu/See-members-of-Metadata; and sign up through a series of simple steps to view current members of the Metadata list.

NEPTUNE Canada is going live with a powerful new web application, Oceans 2.0 Data Explorer, enabling users to explore instruments, data, and video streaming real-time from their "regional-scale underwater ocean observatory" in the northeast Pacific. Requires a simple user registration to "surf the seafloor". 

NEPTUNE Canada's website: www.neptunecanada.ca