1 Topic by Darwyn Sumner

  • Darwyn Sumner
  • Darwyn Sumner
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Topic: Metametadata

Information about information about a resource.
There have been a few mentions about metadata recently, notably

The species datasets in the NBN Atlas do not currently carry all the metadata that is supplied via the NBN Exchange format metadata forms but we are working on the format at the moment.

at https://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=6817
It seems there's an opportunity here to improve a little on the format we've used up until now and at the same time address the issues of Citation and other permanent references to an Atlas dataset and achieve a downloadable document to each dataset that could fulfil several requirements.
Connections between Darwin Core and metadata systems usually mention only the Dublin Core metadata standard, the really big all-purpose standard. What the NBN and Recorder developers went for back in the day was a specific geospatial standard, GEMINI and both were loosely based upon this.
GBIF however address the use of a metadata standard in the following document:
D R, Braak K, M D, Robertson T. 2011. Darwin Core Archive how-to guide. . (April):21 at http://www.gbif.org/resource/80636
Worth studying as GBIF are dealing with the same issues as us.

2 Reply by Darwyn Sumner

  • Darwyn Sumner
  • Darwyn Sumner
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Re: Metametadata

Contributors of datasets to the Atlas will be gearing up to make further uploads. Presumably that's why NBN are working on the metadata format.
Many of us will have kept a personal record of the metadata they added to the old style metadata forms when submitting a dataset to the Gateway (or was it only me who kept it all in a spreadsheet?)
One notable absence from that metadata list was "Version". If you overwrote one dataset with an update then the version number will increase.
There are also date issues, there was a text field for "Temporal coverage" which may now be more useful if replaced with a "Start date" and an "End date" as in the Recorder system for Surveys. The latter could be used to indicate that records should not be added under normal circumstances.

3 Reply by Darwyn Sumner (edited by Darwyn Sumner 18-06-2017 07:10:56)

  • Darwyn Sumner
  • Darwyn Sumner
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Re: Metametadata

The topic of metadata arises again with the publication of "Data upload guidance" as discussed at https://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=6915
The current advice regarding the information that describes “who, what, where, when, why, and how” an ecological dataset was collected focusses purely on the requirements of the Atlas.
This set of 14 terms required by the Atlas (see "NBN Atlas Metadata" at https://nbnatlas.org/help/provide-data-nbn-atlas/) may not be the full set that you would want to record for your own purposes.
For an outline of Ecological Metadata Language, the following paper (obtainable free at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 … %3B2/epdf) is a relatively easy read:

Fegraus EH, Andelman S, Jones MB, Schildhauer M. 2005. Maximizing the Value of Ecological Data with Structured Metadata: An Introduction to Ecological Metadata Language (EML) and Principles for Metadata Creation. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Am. 86(3):158–68

At least half of the paper is written in plain jargon-free English. Particularly valuable is: The question of “How much metadata is enough?” does not have a clear-cut answer. There are two factors to consider: the effort involved in creating the metadata, and the value derived from it afterwards when trying to discover or interpret the data. In general, assume that “more is better,” because omitting detail from metadata at the outset may lead to problems later on (e.g., hours of discussion or exploratory analyses), and in the worst case may render the data unusable.
At 12 years old beware of the technical bits.