British Atmospheric Data Centre ( Searching: Whither NDG? Bryan Lawrence

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( Starting position Visualisation is nice but once a user has done that a few times, they want the data for themselves. They want to be able to bookmark workflow (e.g. “I always want the last month’s climatology picture”). Simple hierarchical menus like that provided by LAS simply do not scale (so I have 100+ entities in my menu, how do I deal with that?)

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( NERC Metadata Gateway - SST

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( NERC Metadata Gateway - SST

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( Very Irregularly Copied to GCMD

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( ESIP to BADC (and we didn’t do it!)

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( DIF Fields Some fields are required, meaning that the fields must be present in the DIF in order for the DIF to load into DIF databases. These fields are Entry_ID, Entry_Title, Parameters, Data_Center and Summary. Other fields are deemed critical, meaning these fields are crucially important for data set selection (i.e., searching), user understanding of the data, or data access. Fields critical for searching are Parameters, Temporal_Coverage, Spatial_Coverage and Location. If a user conducts a search by these criteria, and the DIF does not contain the information, the DIF will not be found in the search. Fields critical for user understanding of the data are Entry_Title, Summary and Data_Resolution. Without these fields, users cannot know if a dataset is appropriate for their needs. Lastly, the Data_Center field is critical for users to be able to access the data once they decide the data is appropriate for their needs.

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( Examples of what Q metadata must support Start Search Observations Simulations Type of Model (e.g. UM) When Run? Who by? Why (e.g. 2xCO2) Specific Times Code Base (e.g Kuo Param) Specific Experiment 1d-4d slice: A-type metadata object Field Campaign or Cruise Platform Instrument Observation Period Parameter Observed Phenomena Observed Geographic Location Parameter Algorithm Not exclusive! Very complex routing!

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( NDG version of Bob’s ESG Object Model Ensemble Simulation Aggregation Project Dataset Operational CampaignPlatform Instrument DataFile B-Attributes A-Attributes For the moment, collapsing the inheritance of CF variables into the (netCDF) Data File. Defining TWO types of attribute

British Atmospheric Data Centre (

We can select information from previous pages. People usually complain when selecting means loosing information and have to go back to choose options not available from the current page

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( All these pages are drawn dynamically on the fly as we browse the catalogue

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( … getting to the data

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( Bottom Line Simple (google-like) Re-entrant (bookmarks) Scripting basis (gui decoupled from functionality) Dynamically generated Deliver data first, worry about visualisation second Avoid traversing deep hierarchies where possible or presenting the user with lengthy lists (more than 10 items). Simple!

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( FGDC CSDGM sections 7 Main Sections Description * Identification title, description, subject Data Quality accuracy, processing Spatial Data Organization vector, raster Spatial Reference projection, depth Entity & Attribute features, values Distribution ordering point, media *Metadata Reference date written, author *Required sections 3 Supporting Sections Citation (reference) Time Period Contact

British Atmospheric Data Centre ( Directory Interchange Format (DIF) A de-facto standard for directory entries which describe a group of data. DIF consists of a collection of fields which detail specific information about the data. Five fields are required in the DIF; the others expand upon and clarify the information. Some of the fields are text fields, others require the use of valid values. The DIF allows users of data to understand the contents of a data set. The DIF contains those fields which are necessary for users to decide whether a particular data set would be useful for their needs. The DIF is compatible with Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Content Standard on Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM). The compatible content allows fields to be mapped. With the mapping, FGDC CSDGM records can be converted into DIF and vice versa.