Enabling Interoperability — Term by Term

As marine science research collaborations increase, and the marine metadata community grows, more metadata managers are developing controlled vocabularies and using them in well-designed systems. However, when a colleague down the hall, up the road, in another state or another country describes similar data, they use a completely different set of terminology. So, how do two systems that use completely different terminology interoperate?

Once lower-level technical barriers like networking and transport protocols are overcome, the key to interoperability is semantic interoperability. And a major contributor to semantic interoperability will be vocabulary mappings. By developing vocabulary mappings—sets of rules that bridge between vocabularies—systems have the resources to interoperate based on a shared terminology.

Learn from the MMI Experience

As part of its Vocabulary Mapping Workshop initiative, MMI has organized a variety of workshops, including the 2006 "Advancing Domain Vocabularies: Vocabulary Mapping Workshop". From these experiences the MMI Workshops Team has developed a Vocabulary Mapping Workshop Template. This template provides resources and advice for organizations to host their own vocabulary mapping workshop, with the same resources MMI uses for its own workshops.

You Can Host a Vocabulary Mapping Workshop

Using this template, you can host your own vocabulary mapping workshop any time, any place. You are welcome to advertise your vocabulary mapping workshop on the MMI site, and even host the work on the site! To announce your vocabulary mapping meeting—or any other metadata event—click "Add Content to Site", and select "Add Event". Please contact us to get help in planning your workshop or hosting it on the MMI site, and of course to let us know you will be hosting a workshop.

Or, Attend Ours: Watch for the 2008 Ocean Observing System Semantic Interoperability! Workshop

What if you want a little more experience with mappings and workshops before hosting your own? You're in luck—MMI will be hosting a major vocabulary mapping workshop in November, 2008. At this event participants will be able to work individually or with their teams to produce useful mappings of their vocabulary terms, and will see the results demonstrated as part of a growing semantic framework of applications and services. Pre-workshop training sessions start in late August, and your mapping research and preparations can begin any time after your group leader has been trained. Remember, the more preparation now, the more interoperability later!