Metadata requirements analysis for the emerging Sensor Web This was orally presented at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2008, Vienna, Austria, 13–18 April 2008.

Abstract

The Sensor Web has emerged from Earth Science research with the development of Web technology, to achieve process automation, sensor interoperation, and service synergy. These promises require the discovery of the right sensor at the right time and the right location with the right quality. Metadata, for sensor, platform, and data, are crucial for achieving such goals. However, analysis and practical use of these metadata reveals that the metadata and their associations are not applicable or suitable for the Sensor Web. The shortfalls are (1) the nonstandard metadata expression language; (2) the missing link between sensor and domain knowledge; (3) the insufficiency in the information for geographic locating and sensor tasking; and (4) the enhanced requirements on the quality, security, and ownership of both sensors and their sensed data. This paper reviews the current standards that have metadata components for the sensor and its platform, especially those from ISO TC211, Open Geospatial Consortium Inc., and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory. A recommendation on metadata that meets the requirement of crossmission sensor discovery in a pervasive Web environment is derived from them. The recommendation addresses issues on language formalization, sensor geolocation, semantics, quality, and accessibility. Roles of the emerging semantic Web technology for enabling robust discovery of sensor are discussed.

Improving the documentation and findability of data services and repositories: A review of (meta)data management approaches

“…In general, the topic of metadata is strongly accented in geosciences. The description of an application accompanied by metadata is the most common one (Di et al, 2009;Ho et al, 2011;Maue et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2013;Da Silva et al, 2014;Kalantari et al, 2014;Hu et al, 2015;Lafia et al, 2016;Palma et al, 2016;Reznik et al, 2016;McGee et al, 2017;Neumaier et al, 2018). Such papers mostly deal with an explicitly defined scope, like the integration of open linked metadata into cloud platforms, sensor webs, geovisual analytics, Volunteer Geographic Information, e-government, libraries for geo-resources, cartographic models, and Web services.…”

“…Smits and Friis-Christenson (2006) as well as Govedarica et al (2010) discuss the potential of open linked metadata in general. Di et al (2009) present an in-depth discussion for sensor metadata. Such work was extended by Tagliolato et al (2019), who developed semantic profiles for SensorML descriptions.…”

“…This situation seems to be a result of the rigidness of the geo community. With the exception of a pioneers, we can see a lack of best practice (Hu et al, 2015;Di et al, 2009;Ho et al, 2011;Narock and Fox, 2012;Kalantari et al, 2014;Wilson et al, 2014;Lafia et al, 2016;McGee et al, 2017;Da Silva et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2013;Maue et al, 2012;Neumaier et al, 2018). The geo community, having reached a peak with respect to the use of non-semantic metadata approaches (i.e.…”

Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Enable Search of Big Climate Datasets in THREDDS

“…This distinction between bibliographic and data management approaches is important in the context of ongoing efforts of metadata standardization [28][29][30][31]. The second approach is not conducive for standardization because the data management models are as complex and heterogeneous as the structures of the data being modeled.…”

A Spatio-Temporal Enhanced Metadata Model for Interdisciplinary Instant Point Observations in Smart Cities

“…As a key part of information resource sharing, metadata are the descriptive data for the right discovery of needed data at the right time and location with the right quality [16]. However, the existing various representations of metadata information results in information silos among different systems [17].…”