1. X-DOMES: Cross Domain Observational Metadata for Environmental Sensing
Session: New platforms and techniques for strengthening ties between observations and user communities
X-DOMES: Cross Domain Observational Metadata for Environmental Sensing (
Felimon Gayanilo
Harte Research Institute
Texas A&M University Corpus Christi (

2. Session: New platforms and techniques for strengthening ties between observations and user communities
NSF/EarthCube Integrative Activities: Cross-Domain Observational Metadata Environmental Sensing Network (X-DOMES)
September 2015 – August 2017
Janet Fredericks (WHOI), Felimon Gayanilo (TAMUCC), Carlos Rueda (MBARI), Krzysztof Janowicz (UCSB)
Consulting with John Graybeal (Stanford), and Mike Botts (Botts Innovative Res.)
JG: Technical Program Manager for Center for Expanded Data Annotation and Retrieval (CEDAR) and BioPortal at Stanford
KJ: GIS & GeoInformatics; editor-in-chief Semantic Web Journal and STKO LabSpace Time for Knowledge Organization); 52N semantic community

3. Session: New platforms and techniques for strengthening ties between observations and user communities
Goal
Leveraging existing relationships with large NSF-funded data management programs, EarthCube building blocks and working groups, and environmental sensor manufacturers, X-DOMES will establish a community of sensor manufacturers and other stakeholders to provide a unifying approach and standards-based description of environmental sensor metadata and observations across geo-science domains.
Built on an existing sensor metadata model that references registered, standards-based vocabularies, the X-DOMES pilot project will provide a suite of tools, built upon community-adopted standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to demonstrate and facilitate the generation of metadata documents that are discoverable and accessible on-line and/or directly from onboard sensor descriptions.  We will also demonstrate mechanisms to associate the data with the metadata through standards-based web services.  With vendor-ready tools implemented throughout a broad-based community, the X-DOMES Network will lay the foundation for the development of and adoption of interoperable access to much needed content-rich sensor metadata.

4. X-DOMES: 2-year Implementation Strategy

5. Tools buildup
Domain Communities and sensor manufacturers create registered vocabularies and ontologies in an Ontology Registry for versioning and persistence (
Sensor manufacturers create the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) SensorML documents that describe sensor model metadata
Field operators create SensorML documents that reference the OEM SensorML and provide information about the specific sensor and its deployment.
Data providers can reference these files and include SensorML that describes processes, such as QC and derived products.
OGC – OpenGeospatial Consortium
OGC SWE or Sensor Web Enablement -  standards enable developers to make all types of sensors, transducers and sensor data repositories discoverable, accessible and useable via the Web
OGC-SWE-SensorML – Standard models and XML Schema for describing the processes within sensor and observation processing systems
Others in the SWE Framework:
Observations and Measurements (O&M) - The general models and XML encodings for observations and measurements
PUCK Protocol - Defines a protocol to retrieve a SensorML description, sensor "driver" code, and other information from the device itself, thus enabling automatic sensor installation, configuration and operation
Sensor Observation Service (SOS) – Open interface for a web service to obtain observations and sensor and platform descriptions from one or more sensors
Others:
Sensor Planning Service (SPS) – An open interface for a web service by which a client can 1) determine the feasibility of collecting data from one or more sensors or models and 2) submit collection requests.
SWE Common Data Model – Defines low-level data models for exchanging sensor related data between nodes of the OGC® Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework.
SWE Service Model ­– Defines data types for common use across OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) services. Five of these packages define operation request and response types.

6. Redesigned UI
Mapping of terms from different collections (e.g. ture.html);
Remote hosting; and
Export in RDF/XML, JSON-LD, N3, Turtle, N-triples and RDF/JSON

8. 2. Describe the Sensor Model (prototype @ http://opensensorhub. github
SensorML Files (OEM and InstID) Packaged with every sensors purchase or distributed
Unique Identifier – references a particular Sensor Model
Characteristics and Capabilities (accuracy, precision, operational range, etc.)
Contact of the manufacturer and references to documentation
InstID references the OEM file indicating that this sensor is a ‘typeOf’ the sensor model – thus inherits the descriptions unless explicitly documented otherwise.
Keywords, enabling technologies, intended applications, observable properties (input), output properties …
“Get our descriptions out of notebooks and PDFs and into machine-actionable documents that can be queried for QC, data curation and translated into human-readable results – with the full power of the Semantic Web.”

9. 2. Describe the Sensor Model (SensorML Editor)
Redesigned UI to look like the Specification Sheets distributed by manufacturers
Available profiles/templates
Direct link to definitions (e.g.
Version/History
Automated registry of SensorML file (e.g.
SensorML construct leads towards companion RDF creation from the SRR (SensorML Repository), an endpoint to integrate into LOD.
LOD – Linked Open Data,  based on metadata collected and curated by contributors to the Data Hub as well as on metadata extracted from a crawl of the Linked Data web.

10. Make it Easy for OEM Creation
Link to definitions;
User friendly SensorML Editor UI
Duplicate and modify functions;
Inherit properties/attributes; and
Auto-registry.

11. 3. SensorML Repository and Registry (SRR)
Maintains a central repository of SensorML files from manufacturers and sensor owners/data providers;
Maintains versions
Can be referenced in other OGC standards such as OGC SOS DescribeSensor;
Can be accessed for QC processes; and
Can be used to generate catalogs or listing of sensors.

12. Community Involvement

13. Session: New platforms and techniques for strengthening ties between observations and user communities
Thank You!
Application of standards-based description of environmental sensor metadata: NSF/EarthCube, Cross Domain Observational Metadata for Environmental Sensing (X-DOMES) Project
Felimon Gayanilo
Harte Research Institute
Texas A&M University Corpus Christi (
“…will allow scientists to better understand data emanating from these sensors so they can explore issues like data discrepancies or how current observations can be used in conjunction with historical records to conclude a statistical trend,”