Information Management

using

Ecological Metadata Language

Corinna Gries - CAP

Margaret O’Brien - SBC

Goal

To provide the ecological community with an extensible, flexible metadata standard

for use in data analysis and for use in data analysis and archiving that will allow

automated machine processing, searching and retrieval.

Ecological Metadata Language - EML

• Introduction– Purpose, Structure, Content

• Management– Editors, Databases, Creation, Maintenance

• Uses– Web Display, Data Access, Data Conversion,

Data Integration

Introduction

• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative • Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)

– Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) – Biological Profile of the CSDGM (from the NBII)

• International Standards Organization – Geographic Information Standard (ISO 19115)– Date and Time Standard (ISO 8601),

• OpenGIS Consortiums (GML) • Scientific, Technical, and Medical Markup Language (STMML) • Extensible Scientific Interchange Language (XSIL).

Introduction

http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/eml/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML

http://intranet.lternet.edu/archives/documents/Newsletters/DataBits/03spring/#6fa

• XML-based storage and transfer of metadata

• EML content standard focuses on metadata for identification, analysis, and integration

• accommodates geospatial and non-geospatial data

• strong data typing

• strong access and revision control

• distinction between logical format and physical format

Introduction

Resource– Dataset– Literature– Software– Protocol

Party, Coverage, Keywords, Access, Physical, Project, Methods

Structure

Introduction

<creator id="pers-1" system="FLS"><individualName>

<salutation>Dr.</salutation><givenName>Joe</givenName><givenName>T.</givenName><surName>Ecologist Jr.</surName>

</individualName><organizationName>FSL LTER</organizationName><address>

<deliveryPoint>Department for Ecology</deliveryPoint><deliveryPoint>Fictitious State University</deliveryPoint><deliveryPoint>PO Box 111111</deliveryPoint><city>Ficity</city><administrativeArea>FI</administrativeArea><postalCode>11111-1111</postalCode>

</address><phone phonetype="voice">(999) 999-9999</phone><electronicMailAddress>jecologist@fi.univ.edu</electronicMailAddress><onlineUrl>http://www.fsu.edu/~jecologist</onlineUrl>

</creator>

Structure

Introduction

• EML Best Practices

http://cvs.lternet.edu/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/emlbestpractices/

• Annotation Language (SEEK)

http://seek.ecoinformatics.org/

Content

Management

• XML Spy• Oxygen• JEdit

• Morpho (EML) (NCEAS)

• MetaDoor (FGDC) (Carolina Ocean Observing and Prediction System)

• Esri ARCGIS (Esri, FGDC)

Editors

Management

• Morpho• RDBMS • Reverse Engineering • Excel Conversion• Scripts

Creation

Management

• Metacat• RDBMS

• Native XML– Open Source, e.g. eXist– Commercial, e.g. Tamino

Databases

ManagementMetacat Features

• Contributors:

NCEAS, Texas Tech, LTER, SDSC• Can hold any XML document• Client API available in Java and Perl • Tables stored in relational database (postgres,

oracle, mysql)• Replication• XML queries converted to SQL

http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/metacat/

Management

• Revision included in the packageId• Manual (Morpho)• Scripted

Maintenance

Uses

Web Display

Uses

Web Display

Browse Results

Dataset View

Uses

Data Access

• Kepler• Trends Project• Xylopia

Uses

Data Access: Kepler

Ilkay Altintas and Efrat Jeager @ San Diego Supercomputer Center, UCSD

Uses

Data Access:Xylopia

Uses

Data Access:Outreach

Uses

Data Conversion

• PTAH creating scripts for statistical programs from EML

http://intranet.lternet.edu/archives/documents/Newsletters/DataBits/06spring/#9fa

Uses

Data Integration

• Unit Dictionary • Kepler: Annotation Language• Cross Site Projects