An Open Metadata Model for Geographic Information
Session Leader(s): Kim Durante
Description:
This session will advocate for a multi-institutional effort in the creation, validation, and publication of geographic metadata in order to make this information more widely available.
Aims and Goals:
- Establish the rationale for large-scale shared registry of geographic metadata
- Discuss requirements for ‘shareable geographic metadata.’
- Identify methods to expose or publish geographic metadata for broader public access
Background:
As institutions are setting up Spatial Data Infrastructures, they are acquiring staff to support the management and interoperability of geographic metadata within systems such as ArcGIS and other localized applications — e.g. library catalogs. As these institutions begin to transition their metadata holdings into the ISO series of geographic standards, this could be an opportunity to advocate for a more open and shareable metadata model. Adoption of a shareable metadata service could significantly reduce the duplication of metadata creation activities within local organizations (which is currently the norm), while at the same time increase the levels of quality that are presently lacking in a lot of geographic metadata. With Open GeoPortal currently managing more than 40,000 records, it might be worth considering how our institutions can publish this metadata, using conventions such as unique identifiers and standard validation routines, in order to bring about an authoritative database of record for geographic metadata. We have seen a similar model and its rationale work in cases like the OCLC bibliographic metadata service.
Session Notes:
Action Items: