ISO 19115:

 

ISO 19115 Geographic Information ― Metadata

ISO 19115:2003 Geographic Information ― Metadata defines the conceptual model required for describing geographic information and services.[1] The objective of this International Standard is to provide a clear procedure for the description of digital geographic datasets so that users will be able to determine whether the data in a holding will be of use to them and how to access the data. By establishing a common set of metadata terminology, definitions and extension procedures, this standard will promote the proper use and effective retrieval of geographic data. Additional benefits of this standard are to facilitate the organization and management of geographic data and to provide information about an organization’s database to others. This standard provides those unfamiliar with geographic data the appropriate information to describe their geographic data and it makes possible dataset cataloguing enabling data discovery, retrieval and reuse. 

Profiles of ISO 19115

The metadata-model of the ISO 19115 distinguishes between about 20 core metadata elements and a comprehensive listing of about 400 elements, with most of these being listed as “optional”. The ISO standard states that individual communities may develop a “community profile” of the International Standard. A select set of metadata elements may be established as mandatory for a community of users. A community may also want to establish additional metadata elements that are not in the International Standard. A community profile should establish field sizes and domains for all metadata elements. The rules for creating a community profile are described in ISO 19106 International Standard Geographic Information ― Profiles.[2] Examples of community profiles of ISO 19115 include the Marine Community Profile and the SeaDataNet Common Data Index.

Marine Community Profile

Marine Community Profile
A Marine Community Profile (MCP) of ISO 19115 has been developed in accordance with the rules established by the international standard under the sponsorship of the Australian Ocean Data Centre Joint Facility (AODCJF). The Marine Profile includes all ISO 19115 core metadata elements and selected non-core elements. The Marine Profile has also defined supplementary metadata elements and codelists to meet the needs of the marine community to support the documentation and discovery of marine resources. Documentation for the MCP is available from the Australian Ocean Data Centre Joint Facility.

Common Data Index

The Common Data Index (CDI) provides detailed insight to available datasets at CDI partners and paves the way to direct online data access or direct online requests for data access / data delivery. The CDI principle is that each participating data centre produces at regular intervals up-to-date CDI metarecords, giving an index overview of the content and coverage of its databases. The partner contributions and their regular updates are centrally collated in a central CDI metadatabase, that is equipped with a CDI user interface, to serve users. CDI has adopted XML and the ISO 19115 standard to support standard exchange and interoperability. CDI documentation is available from SeaSearch.

Sample ISO 19115 Records

Marine Community Profile (MCP). This is a metadata record describing XBT Temperature Profile Data using the MCP. This metadata has been created using GeoNetwork opensource, a standards based metadata tool [NEED INTERNAL LINK].

Common Data Index (CDI). This is a metadata record describing CTD data. The record contains all the CTD stations measured during one cruise (displayed in XML format).