Re: Status of ANZLIC Metadata Guidelines

[John Hockaday <johnh@erin.gov.au>]

Mark Wallis writes:

 THE METADATA PAGES CONCEPT
> Many organisations are now realising the need to correctly document
> their data holdings, including datasets they have acquired from other
> organisations. Also some organisations often need to document
> additional metadata elements other than those detailed under the
> ANZLIC guidelines. These additional metadata elements could include
> details relating to map projection, attributes details and storage
> location. To accommodate this, ANZLIC has developed a `Pages Concept'
> where ANZLIC core elements assigned `Page 0' status,  with any
> additional metadata recorded at lower levels on `Page 1' (additional
> jurisdictional metadata), `Page 2' (additional organisation metadata)
> and so on. As `Page 1' elements gain acceptance throughout the
> industry, they may be moved to `Page 0' status.
 allow organisations to combine additional Page 1 or 2 elements. This
> will allow jurisdictions or organisations to enter any additionally
> required metadata elements.

I believe that this "pages" method is NOT the right structure for users
to add extra fields to the metadata.

I believe that the extra data would probably be related to the current
ANZLIC categories (eg dataset, description, data currency etc) and
therefore would be more useful if they were included in these areas.
If the extra metadata did not fall into one of these categories then
an extra category could be added at the end of the metadata report. 

It would become too confusing to have to go down through many pages to
find an extra field related to the same category just because it was
not an ANZLIC field.  If people did not know what the ANZLIC fields
were then the structure of the metadata directory would look
disjointed.

Many people print the reports that they find on the World Wide Web and
the "Pages" method would mean that they have to print many pages just
to get all the details of the report.  A full metadata report should
not be very long.  After all it is metadata not data.  A list of
contents could be used if the supplier felt that it was necessary.  A
list of contents would demonstrate the illogical layout of the pages
method.

It would be more coherent to have the metadata fields broken up into
categories rather than levels otherwise people would have to be
familiar with every field in the pages layers to know in which level to
look for a particular value.

If ANZLIC want people to use their metadata fields then they should
consider how people will use the system, what they would use it for and
the importance of the metadata that people want to provide.  The
"pages" method would indicate that ANZLIC considers the ANZLIC fields
to be the most important fields to all users where in reality they are
not.  Especially in themetic directories.

It IS important that the ANZLIC fields be incorporated in data
directories to provide conformity but to consider that the ANZLIC
fields are the most important, and therefore should be at the very
front of each metadata set, is arrogant and is not considering the
potential users of the system.  Thus they may find that people will not
adopt this system if it dicates the structure rather than provide a
standard.

___________________________________________________________________________
John Hockaday - Systems Officer                                 GPO Box 787
email: johnh@erin.gov.au                                  Canberra ACT 2601
phone: +61 6 274 1173  fax: +61 6 274 1333                        Australia
URL:http://www.erin.gov.au/
ERIN          Environmental  Resources  Information  Network           ERIN
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