A user-focused approach to sharing Earth and Space Science data: WDS-ITO’s Harvestable Metadata Services Working Group

Abstract:

To keep data services up to date—and find an implementation approach that will meet the needs of multiple stakeholders—institutional, subject-specific data repositories need to quickly make sense of a complex and changing landscape of technologies and frameworks.

Sharing data for reuse in other scientific and knowledge communities has immense potential for academic, economic and societal impact. Its successful implementation on a large scale will open up new and improved pathways for inter- and trans-disciplinary research, evidence-based policy development and other forms of large-scale and collaborative work among diverse users, across different spheres.

Under funding from Canada’s New Digital Research Infrastructure Organization (NDRIO) the World Data System’s (WDS) International Technology Office (ITO) responded to requests from WDS members to create a working group (WG) focused on promoting and facilitating repositories’ adoption of Harvestable Metadata Services (HMetS).

This report describes the goals and activities of the HMetS WG, its members and a set of outputs due in the spring of 2021.

The WG is made up of 13 WDS member repositories, representing the fields of oceanography and ocean sciences, hydrography, earth sciences, space sciences, geomagnetism, geodesy, environmental sciences, social sciences, global change, and renewable resources.

A report, to be published by WDS-ITO, will present a set of use cases, pain points, challenges, lessons learned and approaches to solving common issues identified in the group as members create implementation plans for their metadata services. Additionally, a searchable index of metadata harvesters, classified according to supported standards and exchange protocols, and their harvesting scope (e.g. subject-domain, data types, or country/region targeted), will be made available to the public online via the WDS-ITO’s platform.

Far from promoting a single, one-size-fits-all or “silver bullet” approach, HMetS seeks to work “upwards” from a highly specialized, “deep domain” perspective, to support research (meta)data interoperability and integration into wider data sharing networks. The goal is to find, assess and select the most appropriate means to disseminate and share a particular repository’s datasets within various user communities.