[ecoinfo] metadata servers for research groups in Australia

[Matt Jones]

Hi Rohan,

I've been traveling -- so sorry for the late reply.  To supplement Dan's 
suggestions, I think you could also have an independent system that was 
resident at your lab (ie, #2), and use Metacat's replication 
capabilities to participate in the KNB network (protecting your data 
with appropriate access control rules.  As I'm sure you realize, the KNB 
tools are pretty independent of one another -- you can use EML alone, 
Morpho alone, or Metacat alone, and provide your own solutions for the 
parts that you want to replace.  Of course, the tools are desigend to 
work together, so you get a lot of value in using them that way.  But 
they were designed for a specific set of use cases, and you needs may vary.

If you'd like to set up a metacat system, we'd be happy to help. 
Sometimes a little help in the beginning can save you a lot of time, so 
please feel free to contact us. You'll be able to get good technical 
support for EML, Morpho, and Metacat from the people who developed the 
software on the following three email lists:

eml-dev at ecoinformatics.org
morpho-dev at ecoinformatics.org
metacat-dev at ecoinformatics.org

Let us know if you have any questions.

Matt

Dan Higgins wrote:
> Hi Rohan,
> 
> There are a number of options that you might want to consider, depending 
> on how much infrastructure you want to handle yourself.
> 
> 1) It is possible to use a system like the KNB for your metadata/data 
> and not make the information public. You can set access control so that 
> it can be accessed only by established groups. You could have a 
> customized web interface or use a client like Morpho for 
> entering/reading the metadata.
> 
> 2) It is relatively easy for create your own Metacat server system for 
> your own metadata/data. In this case you could have complete control of 
> the system and not have to move any data to/from the US. [Some computer 
> support would be required to set up and run such a server, but it can be 
> done at no cost on a standard Linux box, for example.]
> 
> A good starting point might be:
> 
> http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knbworkshop.jsp
> 
> or
> http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/morphoportal.jsp
> 
> or
> http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/
> 
> Feel free to ask any questions that might come up
> 
> Dan Higgins
> NCEAS
> 
> ---
> 
> rohan sadler wrote:
> 
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I do not know where the best place to start this inquiry is, so I am 
>> starting here!!
>>
>> I am looking for an ecological metadata solution for our lab, the 
>> Ecosystems Research Group at the University of Western Australia 
>> (UWA). Our lab is fairly independent from the rest of the faculty 
>> structure and we have always looked after ourselves so as not to be 
>> dependent on UWA's infrastructure to meet our needs, which are 
>> specialised.
>>
>> I am in love with the metadata services LTER provides in the USA, and 
>> we do not have a similar system set up in Australia. I am aware of 
>> Morpho and KNB (I attended the ecoinformatics workshop at this year's 
>> ESA conference in Portland, Oregon). An ideal solution for us would be 
>> to have our metadata hosted on a less open site, say LTER, in the USA 
>> and have permission from Australia to update and upload our metadata 
>> pages. It is important for us, as a lab, to view these documents over 
>> the web, and have links to them from our own web sites at UWA.
>>
>> Can anyone provide me with information that may help me in pursuing 
>> this matter?
>>
>> Kind Regards
>> Rohan Sadler
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 

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Matt Jones                                     jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439    Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
University of California Santa Barbara
Interested in ecological informatics? http://www.ecoinformatics.org
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