Panel: Metadata Creation and Import

6/07/07 Moderator: David Bertuca

Eric Glass: Columbia University

Spoke about Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM). http://www.fdgc.gov/

• FGDC was approved on 6/8/94
• 2^nd version of FGDC (FGDC-STD-001-1998) was approved in 1998
• CSDGM identifies three purposes
• Maintain an organization’s investment in geospatial data
• Provide information to data clearinghouses and catalogs
• Provide information needed to process and interpret data transferred from another organization
• Eric’s position was started because of exponentially growing geospatial data at Columbia; they are in the process of creating a catalog with geospatial data and metadata
• There are 7 major sections of the FGDC standard
• With compound elements composed of other compound elements
• Only federal agencies are required to follow the “mandatory if applicable” standard
• Section 1: Identification Information (could pass as a short metadata record)
• Includes: what’s in the dataset, dataset name, who created it, date, how it can be used
• Columbia uses Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) for place keywords (use any other keywords)
• Section 2: Data Quality Information
• Addresses issues of general quality of the dataset
• Data providers should work this into the metadata
• Section 3: Spatial Data Organization Information
• Section 4: Spatial Reference
• Section 5: Entity and Attribute Information
• What information is included, how it is encoded
• Section 6: Distribution Information
• How can the data be obtained?
• Section 7: Metadata Reference Information
• How was it created?
• FGDC metadata is extensible (extensions and profiles)
• Columbia University Spatial Catalog (password protected)
• http://gis.columbia.edu/data.html

Keith Jenkins: Cornell University

• Spoke about metadata editors
• Works with the Cornell University Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR) as the GIS Librarian (used to be the Metadata Librarian)
• Works with geospatial metadata in xml form
• http://geology.usgs.gov/tools/metadata
• CNS = Chew & Spit
• Pre-parser for formal metadata (in FGDC standard)
• Corrects the indentations (“use with care”)
• MP = Metadata Parser (?)
• Command-line program
• Compiler for formal metadata
• Checks the syntax against FGDC CSDGM
• Oxygen, XMetaL (example of generic XML editors)
• CUGIR uses Oxygen 8.1
• Checks for a lot of things to make sure the data are correct
• Has schema-aware capabilities and diff (shows differences)
• Search and replace across multiple files
• Color-code xml
• Workflow
• CNS (if starting with .txt file)
• MP
• Oxygen
• MP (to double check)

John Scialdone: Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)

• Spoke about International Standardization Organization (ISO) metadata standards
• He hasn’t dealt much with ISO standard, he is used to FGDC

ISO & TC (Technical Committee) 211 www.isotc211.org/

ISO 19115 (introduction in 2003) www.iso.org/

• Putting together metadata content and relationships
• Establishes metadata terminology and accessibility (22 core elements)
• 7 mandatory elements
• 15 conditional elements (if applicable, provide information)
• ISO 19115-2
• Extensions for imagery and gridded data
• Is being drafted
• ISO 19139
• Schema, implementation derived from 19115 format
• North American Metadata Profile (NAP)
• U.S., Canada, Mexico
• Each member nation can craft own profile of ISO 19115 with the requirement that it includes the 22 core elements
• ISO 19115 has some similar fields as CSDGM (some do not match)
• ArcCatalog 9.1 does not provide ISO fields for input
• http://www.iso.org
• http://www.isotc211.org
• http://www.fao.org
• www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home
• INTA National Institute for Aerospace Technology http://www.crepad.rcanaria.es/metadata/en/index_en.htm

Edith Konopka: New Jersey Office of Information Technology (OIT) and Office of GIS (OGIS)

• Spoke about metadata for raster mosaics
• A raster mosaic with no metadata loses a lot of its quality
• Raster view is made up of grids with values
• Aerial photographs
• Satellite images
• Orthophotos
• Typical files specify location of upper left corner, cell size, number of rows, number of columns, bit depth
• List value for each cell
• Large rasters usually stored by some data compression
• With lossy JPEGS, if being re-compressed, original quality isn’t restored
• Many raster datasets start out as unlocated images (scanned maps, aerial photos)
• Georeference and orthorectify
• Metadata needs to state whether image was geolocated and how it was done
• Creating a mosaic (rasters can overlap or have gaps)
• Metadata need to state how mosaic was created, what software was used, how overlaps and/or gaps where dealt with
• Need cell registration to have images line up (raster matches grid of mosaics)
• Raster pyramids allow for more efficient display
• Follows 7 sections of FGDC-STD-001-1998
• 1: crucial for catalogs
• 2: detailed information from data producer
• 3: elements differ from vector data
• 5: applicable, but brief
• May also want the Remote Sensing Extensions (FGDC-STD-012-2002)
• Good if collection is large (hundreds of thousands of images)
• 8 mandatory subsections of section 1 (out of 14 subsections)
• Need thesaurus as ISO 19115 Topic Category
• Good for GIS data catalogs and Geospatial One Stop harvesting
• Some data should be repeated in section 1
• Spatial Data Organization Information is brief for raster images, as is Entity Information
• Resolution refers to cell size for raster images
• More often than not, distributors of raster data are not those who created the data
• Require complete info from mosaic creator.
• Edith recommends: FGDC metadata workbook @
  
  http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/documents/workbook_0501_bmk.pdf and FGDC Metadata Quick Guide @ http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/documents/MetadataQuickGuide.pdf

John Callahan: University of Delaware

• Spoke about metadata for map services
• He runs the state of Delaware Clearinghouse
• Received several FGDC cap grants
• Data really need metadata
• Delaware is using ESRI GIS Portal Toolkit (moving to 3.1)
• Online form, upload xml file, use ArcCatalog to get metadata published (or edited)
• FGDC CSDGM created before Web map services
• ISO doesn’t address the issues
• Need to know where map service is coming from, then change software needed to read it
• Take .kmz files, change .kmz to .zip, then view all .kml files in Google Earth
• Metadata is only metadata, a textual description of maps
• Delaware (GPT v3) supports: ArcIMS, OGC WMS, WFS, WCS Services
• Other services need to be documented as Document, Application, Geographic Service,
• Geographic Activity
• Required for all map services
• Content type
• Live Data & Maps
• ESRI tags (they use ArcIMS)
• No requirement on documenting individual layers or attributes consumed by service
• Where is the future? There are lots of questions that need to be answered.