1. Australian Antarctic Division Metadata
Dave Connell

2. The Australian Antarctic Data Centre https://data.aad.gov.au/

3. The Australian Antarctic Data Centre
Established in 1995
Has responsibility for the data management of the Australian Antarctic program
Fulfils Australia's obligations under Article (III).(1).(c) of the Antarctic Treaty – “Scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made freely available.”
A large number of multi-themed science projects running each season
Diverse management requirements
Core Trust Seal Accreditation (World Data System)

4. Metadata History 1995-1999 – ANZLIC 1999-present – DIF
Developed and maintained by the Global Change Master Directory (part of NASA)
Meets obligation to international Antarctic community
2008-present – ISO Profiles and EML
Vanilla, MCP 1.4, ANZLIC, ANDS (RIF-CS)
2019 – ISO

5. Metadata Process Create/Edit
The metadata process at the AADC (metadata creation/editing)
User creates/edits a metadata record
Record is submitted to the metadata officer for checking
Once metadata officer is satisfied, the record is loaded into the database and made live
Involves a human step – records are not automatically loaded
Check/Approve
Allows for quality checking of metadata – ensures a high standard of records are maintained – there’s a back and forth process to get the right information.
Also means that there is an authentication step – as anyone can edit a metadata record, the human step means that any unauthorised edits can be ignored (can only remember this happening once in twenty years).
Load

6. Creating/Editing Metadata
A good metadata authoring tool is key
GCMD DIF tool
Complex
Jargon
Clunky
Mostly produced poor quality metadata that required AADC time to fix
Metadata tools have a reputation (often fairly deserved) of being difficult to use – anyone who has used an ISO metadata tool will definitely know what I’m talking about.
DIF tool, once considered to be one of the more user friendly tools, is also difficult. Have to click through each field, the XML box is meant for super-users, but tended to confuse regular users (and would also confuse “super-users”…

7. Creating/Editing Metadata
Word template alternative
Short and simple
Could be used offline (e.g. on Antarctic voyage)
Enormously successful – high quality metadata produced
Lot of work for the AADC to then convert into a DIF metadata record
Time consuming
Manual process

8. Creating/Editing Metadata
2015 – Release of AADC developed metadata tool
DIF based
Streamlined – many fields removed or automatically set
Wizard interface
Produces complete DIF XML, minimal modification by AADC
Very successful

9. Metadata Availability
2010ish – 2018 – WEBDAV
Was hacked/vulnerable, and had to be taken offline.
2018 – OAM-PMH service set up.
Seems to be functioning properly…
I don’t have actual metrics, but from personal observation, I spend much less time “fixing” metadata, and I rarely have to show someone how to use the tool. Previously I’d often sit over their shoulder.
Currently working on an admin version that incorporates all the other fields (at the moment I have to use the GCMD tool as my admin/power interface).

10. ISO Process
Reasonable understanding of , but not
Had a mapping – I knew what needed to go where, but didn’t know what it should look like
For the original ISO standard I used the Bluenet tool to create a dummy metadata record and created a DIF-ISO XSLT from that
This time I used Evert’s dummy metadata record as a basis
Enough information there for me to extrapolate a complete DIF based ISO record

11. ISO Process
Had to incorporate two elements from 19115/19157 (thanks to advice from Evert Bleys)
VerticalCRS information – EX_VerticalExtent allows for values to be added, but does not specify a unit or a direction (altitude or depth)
19115 solution re-used
Data Quality information – spatialResolution was inadequate for describing horizontal and vertical resolutions. No way of describing temporal resolution information.
Positional Accuracy and Temporal Quality now held in (were in 19115). Re-used solution with new namespaces.

12. ISO 19115-1 Process – XSLT Created
New DIF-ISO /-3 XSLT created
Doesn’t quite cover the full DIF standard (very close)
Significant input from Johnathan Kool to improve functionality
Tested on the Geoscience Australia Validator
Managed to resolve all issues – clean bill of health
Evert Bleys kindly agreed to do some more testing
Uncovered some more issues – not so clean…
Currently resolving the issues – about three remain

13. Next Steps Implement the XSLT
Convert records to format
Will continue to make records available in format also
Disseminate it out to the Antarctic community (who use DIF)