Geodata Metadata Requirements

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,

http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Geodata_Metadata_Requirements

= Why this document exists =

One goal of the [[Public Geospatial Data Project]] is to offer, in the
future, a repository of reusable public geographic data that can
support open source geospatial software projects, both inside and
outside the foundation.

One big requirement for a potential [[Geodata Repository]] is that
there be a well-defined baseline for metadata. This can be seen as a
quality assurance effort - data won't be accepted without a certain
amount of metadata. 

The [http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/|US Federal Geographic Data
Committee metadata standard] emphasises conformance, but doesn't
emphasise exchangeability / reusability. FDGC is standard for "Spatial
Data Infrastucture" efforts, but doesn't have much of a "geospatial
web" orientation.

There are some properties in addition to FGDC which it would be really
useful to have - different distribution channels like WFS, bittorrent
which have come into existence since FGDC was originally defined. For
many elements, FGDC asks for full-text descriptions. More structure in
descriptions would help with automating discovery or re-use. 

This is a "straw-person" set of suggestions, and comment / additional
references would be gratefully received.

-----

While thinking about this, I made an RDF/OWL model using a commandline
tool, which maps to some but not all of the mandatory fields in FGDC
and adds some properties that concern data distribution methods that
have come along since FGDC was designed. 
http://frot.org/osgeo/geometadata.rdf
http://frot.org/osgeo/geometadata.png - a 'domain model' type graph
generated from that RDF model. This is partly a thought experiment,
partly a possible basis for a future prototype, if this gets traction.

Any additions to that document would be appreciated. I'd quite like to
try this out on the OpenSDI list and see what they might contrib in
terms of common knowledge on best practise and future direction about
this.

best wishes,


jo