provisional GCE-LTER eml available, comments appreciated

[Wade Sheldon]

David and all,

OK, I spent some additional time this weekend refining our eml implementation to chase down a bunch of schema validation errors and add full taxonomic coverage. I had screwed up on some element nesting in coverage and methods and had neglected some <para> tags in various descriptive sections. I also had to omit the study descriptors I was putting in methods/methodStep/sampling, because they just didn't fit (logically or structurally). I'll look over the schema and normative docs again and come back to that issue after my head has cleared a bit (I'll probably bug you and Janine about that next week).

Now at least our eml docs all have geographic, temporal, and taxonomic coverage (when relevant) plus methods and instrumentation and they are all validating -- at least the representative data sets I've tried so far. The taxonomic coverage info is being pulled directly from our taxonomic database via data set cross-references, so I'm happy about that from a maintenance standpoint. All other info except for boilerplate project and contact descriptors are live from our existing metadata database. I was able to produce this level of eml from our existing database schema without modification so far -- I just used views to generate xml fragments for each section and server-side ASP scripts to query the database to retrieve the relevant records from the views, and then wrap and nest the fragments to return the xml.

As far as content goes I guess we're between 2.5 and 3 on the 'lter eml tiers' scale until I get dataTable worked out. I also want to add some more info to the <intellectualRights> section to cover data release time tables, etc. as discussed in the best practices doc.

If you want a good feel for some of our major metadata types, here are some direct links:

Met data for 1 station (simple):
http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/asp/db/send_eml.asp?id=MET-GCEM-0109


Oceanography data set for 1 site with extensive methods, instrumentation but no taxa:
http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/asp/db/send_eml.asp?id=PHY-GCEM-0310c1

Marsh insect sampling data set for multiple sites with minimal methods, multiple taxa:
http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/asp/db/send_eml.asp?id=INS-GCEM-0310

Aquatic invertebrate sampling data set for multiple sites with methodology, multiple taxa:
http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/asp/db/send_eml.asp?id=INV-GCEM-0301b

Fungal data set with multiple sites, methodology and multiple taxa:
http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/asp/db/send_eml.asp?id=FNG-GCEM-0301

Chemistry study with complex methodology, instrumentation:
http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/asp/db/send_eml.asp?id=POR-GCED-0210


Regards,

Wade Sheldon
GCE-LTER Information Manager

___________________________________________________________

 Wade M. Sheldon
 Management Information Specialist
 Department of Marine Sciences
 University of Georgia
 Athens, GA  30602-3636
 http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/bios/wsheldon.htm

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."  -- Douglas Adams
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