GeoWeb Metadata Follow Up

First off want to thanks the folk that commented on the last post. Lots of useful feedback and it also highlighted a bit of confusion I created with the first post. The purpose of the first post was not a proposal to create a new metadata standard. Instead it was simply a proposal of how we could map the metadata we collect in GeoCommons to existing standards.

From that standpoint the proposal is for an implementation not a standard. We have just about 5,000 unique datasets and about 70,000 data layers, and it would be great to expose useful metadata for the data. The data covers the gambit, from EPA toxic release sites to the number of Facebook users by city. The system and metadata requirements needs to be flexible enough to accommodate both a user uploading Facebook data and one uploading EPA data.

While GIS users might not be intimidated by a metadata form with 75 or even 335 elements your average Web/GeoWeb user definitely will be. The goal with GeoCommons is to provide a destination where both communities can consume and share data, and I think both communities will find tools and data that are useful.

In regard to the metadata elements we proposed to map to in the last post, we were looking for those that both technical and non-technical users would understand, and also automatically trap as many additional elements as possible. To cover technical users, that have a full compliment of metadata, the plan is to have an element where you can you can provide a link to a full metadata specification.

The comments directing us to the ISO 19115 standard were very useful and we are looking to see what elements we are missing to map to that standard as we evolve. The thing we want to make sure we get right is finding to best set of metadata elements to request from users. Balancing the fact that if we have a huge number of elements, most people are going to go running for the hills.

Right now it looks like we’ll have 17-20 elements that will map to Dublin Core, FGDC, and in a next release ISO 19115. So, for each data set in Geocommons you’ll have a page that lists those 17-20 elements in the metadata format technical folks are used to seeing. This should also provide a means by which to explore federating the data with other applications and search approaches.

The goal here is to create a bridge between content being created for the GeoWeb and content created for the GIS world and make both usable and remixable by the web community as a whole. I fully respect the motivations and requirements for the GIS metadata specifications out there, and I hope we can leverage them to create an implementation that will see a high level of adoption.

Without adoption standards are pretty hollow as we’ve seen with all the work that went into GML versus the much lighter specifications for KML and GeoRSS. While both have their place it is clear what the market is supporting. As more geospatial data is created outside of the government we are not going to have the government mandate to force metadata creation and what the market accepts is going to become increasing critical – IMHO. Look forward to getting more feedback as we get ready to launch.