Scientific Data Discovery with XMC CatPushing Back on the Data Deluge: Advancements in Metadata, Archival and Workflows

Scott Jensen, PhDSenior Researcher

XMC Cat

• Need to capture detailed metadata for discovery and re-use

• Must be able to capture domain-specific metadata– Metadata standards implemented in XML – Adaptable to XML schemata from different scientific communities– Able to communicate results based on community schema

• Detailed data discovery search capabilities

• Describe data products in a broader experiment context

• Capture metadata incrementally and early in the scientific process

– Concept based partitioning of metadata schema– Incremental and asynchronous metadata capture

Standalone Front-end Metadata Catalog to Backend Storage Repositories

FedoraOPeNDAPiRODS

XMC Cat

name resolver

Logical IDData

XMC Cat Workspace

Query Data

DataObjects

Location Transparency

Metadata

XMC Cat:

Scientific Metadata Captured as Concepts

Indentification

Citation

Keywords

.

.

.Theme

Temporal

...

Thesaurus

Theme Keyword

Originator

Publication Date

Publication Time

Title...

Publication InfoPublication Place

Publisher

Larger Work Citation

...

Entity and Attribute Detailed Desc

Entity TypeType Label

Type Definition

Definition Source

Attribute

Thesaurus

Temporal Keyword

Attribute Label

Definition

Definition Source

Domain Values

.

.

.

Distribution Distributor

Standard Order Process

Metadata

Metadata Concepts

Elements Within a Concept

Concepts Enable:• Incremental capture• Detailed discovery• Fast response

metadata

identification spatial data distribution

citation description keywords. . . . . .

. . . . . .

contact . . . order process

...Concepts

Stored as XML

Metadata “Shredded” to Relational Tables

Build ResponseFrom Concepts

ComplexSearch

Schema is Partitioned

Based on Concepts

Query Result Based on Community XML Schema

DomainConfiguration

DomainSchema

ConceptShredding

XML Beans

Detailed Relational Search + XML Concept CLOBsConfigurable to Varied Scientific Domains

Query Interface• Point & click query construction adapts to the user’s

community schema

• User builds query through point & click interface– =can be added

• Strongly typed metadata allows for more precise search criteria

• Results are returned using the community XML schema

Let’s Take a Look ...

Browsing Detailed Metadata

Creating a New Query

Selecting “Experiments” as the Query Target

Selecting Concepts to Query

Specifying the Search Range for Concept Elements

Viewing Details of the Search Results

Point & Click XMC Cat Configuration• Prompts for required schemas, determines dependencies

and builds the necessary XML Bean jars.

• Concepts identified through a point & click interface.– Default pushes concepts down as far as possible– Automatically adjusts other concept definitions– Human readable descriptions can be added

• Wizard-based approach “remembers” your configuration through annotations.

• All configurations saved for future sessions.

• Configuration files are automatically generated and downloadable.

Let’s Take a Look ...

Logging into the XMC Cat Builder

Uploading / Selecting Your Schema

Schema Dependencies Determined

Selecting the Root Metadata Element

Point and Click to Identify Concepts

Selecting Catalog Configuration Options

Downloading the Configuration Files

DataRepository

Science Gateway

Data Management Agent

Archived to the data repository XMC Cat Metadata Catalog

Minimal source metadata is recorded

worker

Post-processing of data registration events

Registration eventsadded to queue

pluginplugin

worker

pluginplugin

Database

dataregistration

event queue

nodenode

node

node

Workflow Nodes Register Data Products

XMC Cat: Incremental and Asynchronous Metadata Capture

Try it Out!

• XMC Cat is available through the D2I Website:

http://pti.iu.edu/d2i/xmccat

(Also check out our other D2I projects!)

• Additional schemata being added as pre-packaged configurations.

• Post-processing plug-ins available.

• If your project has a metadata management need, please contact us:– Scott Jensen scjensen@cs.indiana.edu

– Beth Plale plale@cs.indiana.edu