NERC Data Catalogue Service

© NERC All rights reserved

NERC Data Catalogue Service

Patrick BellNERC (British Geological Survey)


What we will cover…

• What is the NERC Data Catalogue Service?• Metadata quality• How does the NERC Data Catalogue Service work?• Redeveloping the NERC Data Catalogue Service • What do we hope to achieve?



• The NERC Data Catalogue Service (NDCS) is a metadata catalogue (database) describing NERC's data holdings and information products.

• A web service sits on top of this catalogue making it accessible to web systems.

• The NDCS Portal is such a system that provides a web-based, NERC-branded gateway that enables all external stakeholders to search and discover NERC datasets.







Metadata quality

• Being ISO 19115 compliant isn’t enough• Being UK Gemini 2 compliant isn’t enough• Developing a pretty portal isn’t enough• Quality metadata content is key


Key Principles for metadata

• Discovery level metadata provides essential information that enables a user to find out if a particular resource exists, its location, ownership and whether it meets their requirements.


Key Principles for metadata

• Searches on metadata can result in a large number of results; the metadata should therefore be sufficiently clear and comprehensible to enable the reader to understand the nature of the entry and to assess whether it is suitable for reuse.

• Poor quality metadata can mean that a resource is effectively hidden from users and remains unused.


Metadata should be:

• Accurate:• The metadata correctly and precisely describes

the resource in question.

• Beneficial:• The metadata contains information that is useful

to the end user and doesn’t have lots of extraneous, irrelevant information.


Metadata should be:

• Clear:• The metadata should be easily understandable

by a non-technical user and should be unambiguous. Write for readers not robots.

• Distinctive:• The metadata contains information that allows it

to be distinguished from other, potentially similar, resources


Bespoke harvesting

OAICSWWAF

Manual

NDCS Database

A.N. OtherData Provider ...

WSDL web service request

Response

Closed, proprietary, centralised on one team,changes are developer intensive

https://twitter.com/BritGeoSurvey


Redeveloping the NDCS

• The current NDCS relies on bespoke web services, that while well described, limit their interoperability and increase their maintenance overhead.

• We are redeveloping the NDCS to utilize standard, interoperable web services that can be reused to make NERC data discoverable through other online gateways such as the UK Location Programme UKLP (data.gov.uk/data) and EU INSPIRE portals.


Why redevelop?• Ensure open, industry standards-based architecture for

sharing data that can be understood by a wide range of people

• Maximise potential to integrate NERC data with data from other suppliers

• Ensure NERC meets its requirements under UKLP/INSPIRE as efficiently as possible.

• Cost-effective maintenance and development. Use tools widely used across the GI industry that are community developed in response to legislation changes and technical advances rather than bespoke purpose built tools that become isolated, risk becoming legacy, rely on key developers to understand, fix and progress.

• Provide an infrastructure that can be monitored effectively in accordance with the quality of service metrics set out by the various legislation under which NERC must respond.


A.N. OtherData Provider ...

CSW

CSW

CSWCSW


GeoNetwork

TerraCatalog

https://twitter.com/BritGeoSurvey












Extending NDCS Portal functionality

• Enabling visualisation of discovered datasets and services in a map-based preview client

• Providing clearer pathways to obtain discovered datasets and information products.

• Providing access to service as well as dataset metadata records

• Providing the ability to drill up and down between related parent/child records in a series

• Extending the advanced semantic searching functionality


Redeveloped NDCS will provide…

• Standards-based CSW metadata catalogue• Generic CSW interface (OWSLib python library) with

greater functionality• A system that is more

• Flexible and extensible• Collaboratively managed and developed.

NERC Data Catalogue Service

Documents

rights reserved nerc

key nerc

resources nerc

suppliersensure nerc

nerc datasets

nerc data discoverable

developer intensive

nercbranded gateway