Nongeospatial Metadata for the Ecological Sciences

Michener, William K.; Brunt, J.; Helly, J.; Kirchner, Thomas B.; Stafford, Susan G.

doi:10.1890/1051-0761(1997)007[0330:nmftes]2.0.co;2

Cited by 273 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The TOP concepts can actually be considered as metadata descriptors specified in the Ecological Metadata Language (EML: Michener et al . ): concept names can be mapped to ‘Variable identity’ (Class IV.B.1. of EML), concept definition to ‘Variable definition’ (Class IV.B.2.)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Towards a thesaurus of plant characteristics: an ecological contribution

et al. 2016

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Ecological research produces a tremendous amount of data, but the diversity in scales and topics covered and the ways in which studies are carried out result in large numbers of small, idiosyncratic data sets using heterogeneous terminologies. Such heterogeneity can be attributed, in part, to a lack of standards for acquiring, organizing and describing data. Here, we propose a terminological resource, a Thesaurus Of Plant characteristics (TOP), whose aim is to harmonize and formalize concepts for plant characteristics widely used in ecology. 2. TOP concentrates on two types of plant characteristics: traits and environmental associations. It builds on previous initiatives for several aspects: 1) characteristics are designed following the entity-quality model (a characteristic is modelled as the “Quality” of an “Entity” ”) used in the context of Open Biological Ontologies; 2) whenever possible, the Entities and Qualities are taken from existing terminology standards, mainly the PO (Plant Ontology) and PATO (Phenotypic Quality Ontology) ontologies, and 3) whenever a characteristic already has a definition, if appropriate, it is reused and referenced. The development of TOP, which complies with semantic web principles, was carried out through the involvement of experts from both the ecology and the semantics research communities. Regular updates of TOP are planned, based on community feedback and involvement. 3. TOP provides names, definitions, units, synonyms and related terms for about 700 plant characteristics. TOP is available online (www.top-thesaurus.org), and can be browsed using an alphabetical list of characteristics, a hierarchical tree of characteristics, a faceted and a free-text search, and through an Application Programming Interface. 4. Harmonizing definitions of concepts, as proposed by TOP, forms the basis for better integration of data across heterogeneous data sets and terminologies, thereby increasing the potential for data reuse. It also allows enhanced scientific synthesis. TOP therefore has the potential to improve research and communication not only within the field of ecology, but also in related fields with interest in plant functioning and distribution

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Towards a thesaurus of plant characteristics: an ecological contribution

et al. 2016

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“…Metadata are essential to describe the different approaches taken to obtain, process, and report diverse ecohydrological and biogeochemical observations and the resulting data products (Michener et al, 1997;Michener, 2006;Papale et al, 2012;Kervin et al, 2013). Metadata allow for interpretation and integration of heterogeneous data obtained from different measurement approaches across disparate study sites, which occur even in well-organized science projects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Examples include the Open Geospatial Consortium "Observation and Measurements" standard for observations and sampling features (OGC, 2013;ISO 19156:2011ISO 19156: , 2011, International Standards Organization/Federal Geographic Data Committee standards for geospatial (FGDC, 1998, ISO 19115-1:2014 and temporal metadata (ISO 8601), netCDF formats for climate and forecast metadata (Unidata, 2016), and the Ecological Metadata Language (EML; Michener et al, 1997;EML Project, 2009). Data information models built upon these standards describe content data and metadata standard formats and relationships, and are easily converted to searchable relational databases (Horsburgh et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A metadata reporting framework (FRAMES) for synthesis of ecohydrological observations

Christianson

Varadharajan

Christoffersen

et al. 2017

Ecological Informatics

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A B S T R A C TMetadata describe the ancillary information needed for data preservation and independent interpretation, comparison across heterogeneous datasets, and quality assessment and quality control (QA/QC). Environmental observations are vastly diverse in type and structure, can be taken across a wide range of spatiotemporal scales in a variety of measurement settings and approaches, and saved in multiple formats. Thus, well-organized, consistent metadata are required to produce usable data products from diverse environmental observations collected across field sites. However, existing metadata reporting protocols do not support the complex data synthesis and model-data integration needs of interdisciplinary earth system research. We developed a metadata reporting framework (FRAMES) to enable management and synthesis of observational data that are essential in advancing a predictive understanding of earth systems. FRAMES utilizes best practices for data and metadata organization enabling consistent data reporting and compatibility with a variety of standardized data protocols. We used an iterative scientist-centered design process to develop FRAMES, resulting in a data reporting format that incorporates existing field practices to maximize data-entry efficiency. Thus, FRAMES has a modular organization that streamlines metadata reporting and can be expanded to incorporate additional data types. With FRAMES's multi-scale measurement position hierarchy, data can be reported at observed spatial resolutions and then easily aggregated and linked across measurement types to support model-data integration. FRAMES is in early use by both data originators (persons generating data) and consumers (persons using data and metadata). In this paper, we describe FRAMES, identify lessons learned, and discuss areas of future development.

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“…There is a growing awareness among practitioners and funders that this situation represents inefficient use of research dollars, missed opportunities to exploit prior investment, and a general loss for the scholarly community 13 . Michener et al 14 described the loss of valuable data and insight about those datasets as “information entropy”. This loss of information is becoming increasingly worrisome as data management practices improve very slowly, while the volume of data grows exponentially.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DataUp: A tool to help researchers describe and share tabular data

et al. 2014

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Scientific datasets have immeasurable value, but they lose their value over time without proper documentation, long-term storage, and easy discovery and access. Across disciplines as diverse as astronomy, demography, archeology, and ecology, large numbers of small heterogeneous datasets (i.e., the long tail of data) are especially at risk unless they are properly documented, saved, and shared. One unifying factor for many of these at-risk datasets is that they reside in spreadsheets.In response to this need, the California Digital Library (CDL) partnered with Microsoft Research Connections and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to create the DataUp data management tool for Microsoft Excel. Many researchers creating these small, heterogeneous datasets use Excel at some point in their data collection and analysis workflow, so we were interested in developing a data management tool that fits easily into those work flows and minimizes the learning curve for researchers.The DataUp project began in August 2011. We first formally assessed the needs of researchers by conducting surveys and interviews of our target research groups: earth, environmental, and ecological scientists. We found that, on average, researchers had very poor data management practices, were not aware of data centers or metadata standards, and did not understand the benefits of data management or sharing. Based on our survey results, we composed a list of desirable components and requirements and solicited feedback from the community to prioritize potential features of the DataUp tool. These requirements were then relayed to the software developers, and DataUp was successfully launched in October 2012.

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Nongeospatial Metadata for the Ecological Sciences

Cited by 273 publications

References 9 publications

Towards a thesaurus of plant characteristics: an ecological contribution

Towards a thesaurus of plant characteristics: an ecological contribution

A metadata reporting framework (FRAMES) for synthesis of ecohydrological observations

DataUp: A tool to help researchers describe and share tabular data

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