[eml-dev] International LTER IM Meeting Presentation - What is EML Good for (Suggestions please)

[Mark Servilla]

Hi David,

Below, please find my comments with regard to your slide points.

1. Actually, I find EML to be applicable for documenting data well 
beyond ecology.  Just the top-level modules express such diversity - 
dataset, citation, software, and protocol can all be applied to many 
other domains.  You can, however, argue that the current dataset module 
is certainly oriented to the environmental sciences.  EML can be 
extended to include other domain-centric tags with the appropriate level 
of effort.

2. True.  Don't forget, however, that the the other top-level modules 
describe objects other than data.

3. EML certainly facilitates data discovery.  However, a significant 
part of the dataset subtree is devoted to the data description - the 
dataTable, spatialRaster, spatialVector, storedProcedure, view, and 
otherEntity provide comprehensive tags for describing the "data", how it 
is stored, and access properties.  Last year's addition of the 
DataManager library to EML provides Java code for identifying and 
loading data tables into a local RDBMS based on an EML description of 
the data table.

4. Agreed.

5. I do agree that EML is quite flexible and extensible given the right 
amount of effort.  I would, however, contend that EML is not usable 
"right out of the box" without some good training/education.  LTER is a 
perfect example of this point.

6. I guess this depends on your definition of "true synthesis".  I would 
bet that EML, in its current state, is 80% good enough for most 
synthesis projects, given that data is extremely well documented.

7. In general, I would agree with this statement.  There is no 
referencing mechanism in the current version of EML that would support 
dereferencing to an external document (like "import" for Java or 
"include" for C).  I suppose one could build an EML document that is 
project-centric that includes multiple dataTable entries; but this does 
not appear to be the norm for LTER documents.

With regard to Kristin's note, I would probably rephrase "shortcomings" 
to "limitations".  I my perspective, "limitations" should be reasonably 
expected for any software application, where as "shortcomings" has 
(IMHO) a somewhat negative reflection.  Also, since you are presenting 
to the Chinese, you may want to review the email thread in either 
metacat-dev or morpho-dev with Chau Chin Lin regarding the use of the 
Chinese character set.  I'm not familiar with the details, but Matt 
Jones or Jing Tao could probably provide a summary.

Sincerely,
Mark

David Blankman wrote:
> I am doing a presentation at the ILTER Information Management workshop 
> in China April 7 - 12. 
> 
> 
> I would like any thoughts you may have.In particular, I am looking for 
> tools, other than Kepler, Morpho, and Metacat that have been built to 
> take advantage of EML.
> 
> 
> My preliminary thoughts are that my presentation should be short - maybe 
> 15 minutes. The main points would be:
> 
>    1. EML is primarily a standard for documenting ecological data
>       implemented as a series of XML Schemas
>    2. Its focus is on individual data files - bottom up (as opposed to
>       the European system which starts at the site level and works down)
>    3. Best use is data discovery.
>    4. Can be used as the basis for semi-automated synthesis
>    5. Is very flexible and can be used without a lot of training.
>    6. Not adequate for true synthesis
>    7. Bottom up approach means that a lot of research context
>       information has to be repeated in each file.
> 
> *Kristin Vanderbilt's (ILTER IM Committee Chair) comments:*
> 
> Please stress what's good about EML (as you list, plus there are 
> reasonably mature tools that ILTER countries could readily adopt—perhaps 
> include a slide describing the tools and who uses them) and what EML's 
> shortcomings are.  The outcome I want from this workshop (which I'm 
> willing to modify, of course, if there is good reason to), is a Best 
> Practices document indicating that ILTER countries should now adopt EML 
> and then new tools that incorporate ontologies will eventually become 
> available (hopefully we can specify a timeframe) that they can later 
> adopt that will make the ALTER-NET and EML systems interoperable.  The 
> Chinese use a different system, and we have to figure out how to make it 
> interoperable, too.    Basically we need to hear what EML can do, what 
> the ontology system can do on top of that, and figure out a strategy for 
> a crosswalk.  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> David
> -- 
> David Blankman
> Director of Information Management, Israel LTER/Ma'arag 
> Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology
> Jacob Blaustein Desert Research Institute
> Ben Gurion University
> Midreshet Ben Gurion, 84990 Israel
> 054-685-9345 (cell)
> 1-505-349-5680 (Skype)
> 
> 
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-- 
Mark Servilla, Ph.D.

LTER Network Office
Department of Biology
MSC 03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

servilla at lternet.edu
Office (505) 277-2619
Cell   (505) 453-8593

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