Metadata:
To facilitate access to ocean data and information, it is important to consistently describe and classify data through the implementation of metadata schemes. Metadata is structured information that describes information or services. The information recorded in the metadata enables people and applications to find, manage, control, understand and preserve their data assets.[1]
Metadata is an important component of any ocean data resource. Metadata describes “who, what, where, when, why, and how” about the data and can answers a wide range of questions about the dataset, such as:
Metadata provides many benfits to both the data producer and the data user. Metadata helps people to locate data and services, mainly through the use metadata catalogues available on the internet. Metadata can provide information that will assist in determining the suitability of data. Organizations can also benfit from metadata. The use of metadata within an organization is part of overall sound data management practices. It also provides a permanent inventory of data assets and services and can be used to manage an organization's investment in its data assets.Accessible metadata can reduce the administrative costs associated with responding to enquiries about data.
The concept of metadata is not new – a Library catalogue contains metadata about the books held in the Library. Creating metadata is similar to library cataloguing, except the metadata creator needs to understand the scientific information behind the data in order to properly document the datasets. Most ocean data has a spatial component, that is a geographic location, and spatial metadata standards are used to describes spatial datasets in order to provide a consistent approach to the storage and retrieval of spatial data.