This project is an effort to improve the ease of use of data from ocean observations by developing broader agreement within the ocean science community on "best practices" for marine metadata. It brings together a number of segments of the ocean science community in an effort to document current usage, to develop a consensus on "best practices", and to test the best practices and their effectiveness at promoting cross-platform, cross-disciplinary data exchange in a test-bed activity. The goal is to reduce the burden of metadata generation, increase the use of metadata, and develop a general metadata structure that supports a wide variety of data usage. The test-bed will provide an end-to-end demonstration of the use of metadata "best practices" in an environment with heterogeneous data types.
The volume and variety of ocean data from modern observing systems are expanding rapidly and it becomes difficult to find or effectively use these data without assistance from modern data management and data analysis tools. These tools place the burden of searching for and manipulating data onto computer programs. To be able to successfully do this requires that datasets include descriptions of the data they contain, and details of how they have been obtained and processed, that are stored in a form that can be understood by these programs. To be machine-readable, this metadata must conform to semantic and syntactic standards that are understood by the programs. This project aims to combine the best of existing practices for generating metadata into recipes for voluntary de facto community standards. Experience with how to develop metadata and associated ontologies has emerged in a number of fields and this will be fused with existing marine metadata practices.
If successful, this project will develop a more comprehensive approach to ocean metadata and facilitate its adoption by marine scientists. More complete metadata that conforms to a community standard will enhance the ability of many users to employ ocean observations more effectively. The impact is likely to be felt most directly by the academic research and "operational" ocean nowcasting or forecasting communities. Indirectly, this is likely to benefit a number of ocean data users such as coastal ocean resource managers and commercial users by easing and expanding their access to relevant data.
