CDI Controlled Vocabularies Roy Lowry, Karen Vickers (BODC) Michele Fichaut, Catherine Maillard (SISMER) Reinhard Schwabe (DOD) 4 June 2003

Objective To provide vocabularies to describe what was measured Used to restrict CDI search hit count Vocabulary dynamically generated from existing data/metadata systems Therefore, bottom-up design rather than top- down

Scope CDI requires three vocabularies  Platform  Instrument  Parameter Platform and instrument vocabularies developed by DOD Parameter vocabulary developed by BODC and SISMER

Platform Vocabulary GF3 did a fairly good job (except grids!) Vocabulary based on this How is this going to be distributed and/or maintained?

Instrument Vocabulary Vocabulary describes either sample collection or in-situ measuring technique Compatibility with ROSCOP taken into account I think we now have an agreed list Again, how is this to be maintained and distributed?

Parameter Vocabulary Strategy to develop a set of parameter groups derived from data file parameter codes Started calling these ‘keywords’ but the word implies a ‘top-down’ design approach Settled on the name ‘Agreed Parameter Groupings’

Parameter Vocabulary Initial APG set based on BODC and SISMER dictionaries Parameter count in each group kept as uniform as possible Facilitates a list box interface Almost succeeded but species-linked parameters need further work Further development possible with current groupings operational

Parameter Vocabulary 36 groupings mapped to the disciplines:  Biology  Chemistry  Physical oceanography  Geology and geophysics  Meteorology and atmospheric chemistry  Multidisciplinary  Discipline independent Discipline indicated by first byte of code

Parameter Vocabulary The groupings are:  Biology B005 Bacteria and viruses B015 Birds, mammals and reptiles B020 Fish B025 Microzooplankton B027 Other biological measurements B030 Phytoplankton B035 Pigments B040 Zoobenthos B045 Zooplankton

Parameter Vocabulary The groupings are:  Chemistry C003 Amino acids C005 Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus C010 Carbonate system C015 Dissolved gases C017 Fatty acids C020 Halocarbons (including freons) C025 Hydrocarbons C030 Isotopes C035 Metal concentrations C040 Nutrients C045 Other inorganic chemical measurements C050 Other organic chemical measurements C055 PCBs and organic micropollutants

Parameter Vocabulary  The groupings are: Physical oceanography  D005 Acoustics  D010 Currents, sea level and waves  D015 Optical properties  D020 Other physical oceanographic measurements  D025 Sea temperature and salinity Geology and geophysics  G005 Gravity, magnetics and bathymetry  G010 Sediment properties  G012 Sonar and seismics  G015 Suspended particulate matter

Parameter Vocabulary The groupings are:  Meteorology and Atmospheric Chemistry M005 Atmospheric chemistry M010 Meteorology  Multidisciplinary O005 Fluxes O010 Rate measurements (including production, excretion and grazing)  Discipline independent Z005 Administration and dimensions

APG Implementation Groupings incorporated in BODC Oracle dictionary Dynamic web interface including plain text descriptions to assist group mappings System is fully dynamic

Problems Biological entity properties  Needs further subdivision  Further work once BODC dictionary has been mapped to ITIS Atmospheric chemistry  Very uncomfortable about this  Think through mappings of atmospheric pCO 2  Rename as ‘Other atmospheric gases’ and map to chemistry?  Further work as BODC/BADC develop common controlled vocabulary for NERC Data Grid

Problems Grouping codes  Having discipline defined by first byte is a problem  Remapping a grouping between disciplines (e.g. chemistry to multidisciplinary) involves recoding  Recoding is an accident waiting to happen  Can we drop this rule and manage mapping/ordering through explicit fields?

Problems Multidisciplinary  This is a ‘catch-all’ that dilutes search effectiveness  Necessary because discipline to APG mapping is simple one to many  Could be replaced by a many to many mapping  Implications need to be considered for non-BODC systems and CDI interface design