METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Expert evaluation Jarmo Saarikko (Metla team) NEFIS WP5 meeting Hamburg

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Particular points on metadata (D3) Naming standards - usage Element refinements - usage Encoding Schemes Themes Metadata entry and control

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Naming standards Spelling of names is important. Name is fixed, all other properties of DC entities can be translated etc. Spelling of term Names seems inconsistent between the Metadata Schema and Metadata Guidelines as well as with DCMI –Name quality report is qualityReport Not all Terms used in Guidelines are in Schema: NEFISrefinements are missing? Start using namespaces in the documentation!

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Element Refinements are properties of a resource (like Elements) Element Refinements can alternatively be used in metadata records independently of the properties they refine In DCMI practice, an Element Refinement refines just one parent DCMI property

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Encoding Scheme provides contextual information or parsing rules that aid in the interpretation of a term value contextual information –controlled vocabularies, –formal notations, or –parsing rules. Without an encoding scheme specifically designated, a subject which might very well be carefully selected from a controlled vocabulary cannot be distinguished from a simple keyword.

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg DCMI Type Vocabulary A general, cross-domain list of recommended terms May be used as values for the Resource Type element To identify the genre of a resource The member terms of the DCMI Type Vocabulary are called Vocabulary Terms

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg NEFIS Vocabulary and term lists The work done is very good in the selected themes, although there is some overlap Work should be continued towards a forest thesaurus or forest ontology – as suggested

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Nominated terms – procedure? the procedure to handle nominations should be created before collecting such terms Perhaps more descriptive terms for this could be –Name: suggestedTerm" –Label: "Suggested Terms

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg NEFISthemes are overlapping Economics Inventory and Economics Stand establishment Silviculture and Operations Forest types Vegetation and Environment & Ecology Forest damages Health, Fire and Environement & Ecology Wood Forest products and Wood fuel Institutions Research and Forest institutions Policy Rural development and Policy

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Some NEFISthemes are METHODS These are not really SUBJECT themes: –"Maps and georeferenced data" –"Field Experiment" Alternatives labels for these themes: –"Cartography" or "Geomatics" –"Research"

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Metadata entry Using Word documents did not really teach the correct structure or coding of metadata elements Someone has to manually enter the data into a database? Guidance to the entry tool was not clear –e.g. handling multiple items

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Metadata control The destination of the provided metadata was unclear Who owns the metadata? Who can modify or delete the metadata and how? Can the moderator of records be changed? Batch or manual upload?

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Metadata guidelines (D5) In general the guidelines were readable and provided enough examples However, there was some lack of consistency over terms and values Guidance to the element Subject was unclear and confusing

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Element listing For further versions of the Guidelines –the element listing in the beginning should be expanded to cover both elements and element refinements –these should be listed independently in the Guide as is the new policy of DCMI –The Guidelines could group and list the mandatory elements first

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Subject - general The descriptions, cross-references and examples are confusing and diffcult to understand or apply nominatedTerms –The special case of using normal metadata descriptions for term suggestions to an edited thesaurus may be quite confusing –the process has to be extremely clearly explained and documented

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Subject – encoding schemes Authority files should be compiled into a registry of recommended encoding schemes Encodings for habitats /sites should be added –CORINE –NATURA2000 (EUR 25, 2003) –A classification of Palaearctic habitats (1995) –European vegetation types, the Nordic Countries (2000) Recommend one classification scheme (e.g. GFDC as it is developed for forestry)

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Contextual consistency There are references to a metadata entry tool e.g. when describing Nominated Terms This is a guide to the metadata There should be a separate technical document on the entry tool

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Dublin Core numbers 18 elements 33 refinements 12 controlled vocabulary terms 17 vocabulary and encoding schemes 10 other schemes

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Usability of the documentation The deliverables were set up in a clear and concise way and were easy to follow For easiness of file management, the vocabularies should have been provided as two files and given a version number There should be a separate technical document for the metadata entry tool (be it Word or something else)

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Quality European Schoolnet has dealt with this topic extensively European Treasury Browser –ETB recommendations on quality criteria (2001) –ETB deals with metadata, interoperability, multilinguality, has a thesaurus, etc. –

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg Namespaces For easiness of documentation and interoperability List all namespaces used by Nefis project Document the namespace for each of the element and qualifier names used by Nefis Variable Names in dataset metadata should be listed in a separate namespace see: FML

METSÄNTUTKIMUSLAITOS SKOGSFORSKNINGSINSTITUTET FINNISH FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Saarikko for NEFIS WP5 / Hamburg FML – forest markup language D3 described requirements for a deeper metadata structure than the Core elements (used for describing datasets) FML Scheme and its possible modules and namespaces can solve this problem This provides the required interoperability