A Last Resort: Developing a Local Vocabulary

aisenor — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:50:00 -0700

Do you need to develop your own controlled vocabulary? If you do, then you should be considering how you are going to define the terms and whether or not this is for legacy data. See the sections below for details.

Have a specific question about developing a local vocabulary? Ask MMI!

About the Guides Editorial Group

aisenor — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:26:00 -0700

Editorial Group Membership

Achieving Semantic Interoperability

graybeal — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:10:00 -0800

This guide is written at an Intermediate level, and assumes some familiarity with most metadata concepts.

Additional Resources

carynn — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:51:00 -0800

Note: Clicking these links will take you to links outside the MMI Guides.

If you know of a resource not included on this list, please let us know!

Authority File (Flat Vocabulary)

carynn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:10:00 -0800

Case Studies

carynn — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:46:07 -0800

DIGARCH Cruise Harvest

Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) project to archive cruise data in an interoperable environment, using tools developed at SIO

Controlled Vocabularies (CV) for Metadata Harvesting

Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) experience using database technology to harvest and correct erroneous metadata

Categories of Controlled Vocabularies

carynn — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:35:00 -0800

Ironically, terminology about controlled vocabularies can be somewhat confusing. Much time has been spent understanding the differences between the categories of controlled vocabularies, and necessary conditions for each category. Of course, if you're reading this guide, you probably know this first hand. In general, there are three broad categories of controlled vocabularies: flat, multi-level and relational. Within these three categories, there are a variety of types of controlled vocabularies.

Choosing a Controlled Vocabulary

graybeal — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:15:00 -0800

Choosing a Tool

agale — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:46:21 -0700

Coming soon... Watch for updates!

Choosing and Implementing Established Controlled Vocabularies

graybeal — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:05:00 -0800

Background

When you are creating systems that must provide metadata content, or you are creating metadata content directly, sooner or later you will provide a way to fill out fields with specific terms. To take a simple example, you may need to answer the question "What is this data item?", obtaining as a reply the explicit name of a measurement parameter.

Citing Terms

paul — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:34:20 -0800

Just like a web site uses an address so that people can locate it and act upon it, by loading it in a web browser, for example, ontologies and terms within ontologies use addresses so they can be located and acted upon as well. To do this, ontologies and their terms are assigned URIs, making them identifiable and useable by people and software.

Code List (Flat Vocabulary)

carynn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:13:00 -0800

Flat Vocabularies					Multi -Level Vocabularies		Relational Vocabularies
Authority File	Glossary

Common Standards

aisenor — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:28:00 -0800

Below several standards are described that offer a good starting point for those seeking a generic metadata approach for their data: ISO 19115 and ISO 19139, CSDGM, DIF, Dublin Core, and ADN. This is not an exhaustive list, but presents a selection of standards that are:

Definition of Metadata

graybeal — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:34:00 -0800

Metadata are used to describe data or information. Metadata can describe just about anything you find on a computer, and the term is often used to refer to information about things that aren't on the computer. In environmental sciences like oceanography, metadata describe the information that scientists collect, telling users about the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" of a data set or data item.

Developing Controlled Vocabularies

aisenor — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:00:00 -0800

The following should help you define the terms in your new vocabulary. Remember, you have to make the vocabulary expandable (scalable) because there will likely be additions. As well, there are a few tricks you can think about before starting.

Have a specific question about developing vocabularies? Ask MMI!

Developing Controlled Vocabularies for Legacy Data

aisenor — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:02:00 -0800

For the legacy data problem, you should consider the following approach. We have also included additional tricks that may be helpful.

Have a specific question about controlled vocabularies? Ask MMI!

Dictionary (Flat Vocabulary)

carynn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:11:00 -0800

Flat Vocabularies					Multi -Level Vocabularies		Relational Vocabularies
Authority File	Glossary

Dictionary of Metadata Terminology and Acronyms

carynn — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:59:00 -0800

This dictionary provides metadata-related definitions for the terms used on this web site, and a guide to common acronyms.

In some cases definitions used by the larger marine metadata community may be different than those used by this site; in such cases, the difference is indicated. In many cases this page provides a metadata-centric definition for a term that has wider meetings (e.g., 'dictionary'); such cases begin with the phrase 'In the context of metadata'.

Discipline-Specific Profiles and Extensions

aisenor — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:11:56 -0700

Discipline-Specific Standards, Profiles, and Extensions

In the Common Standards section we described broadly applicable and widely used standards for those seeking a generic metadata approach. These standards provide an organized way to represent many of the general characteristics of a dataset. However, in some cases the generic approach does not provide enough detail within a particular subject area.

Example Case

aisenor — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:16:00 -0800

Now we consider the development of a vocabulary. For this particular case, we consider a legacy data rescue project.

Flat Vocabularies					Multi -Level Vocabularies		Relational Vocabularies
Authority File	Glossary