Metadata for New Zealand's National Vegetation Plot

Databank

Nick Spencer and Susan WiserLandcare Research

New Zealand

What is NVS?• NVS (National Vegetation Survey) – New Zealand’s

largest archive facility for plot-based vegetation data

http://nvs.landcareResearch.co.nz

NVS - coverage

• Best in grassland and indigenous forest

• Collection intensity has varied over 50+ years

• 14 000 permanent and52 000 relevé plots

• NVS has many uses

Why metadata management?

• In the past – good for organising data

• Expanding content and function – makes metadata critical – e.g. Kyoto protocol reporting

• Metadata system redeveloped to meet new demands

What is metadata?

• Metadata is ‘information about information’

• Who, What, Where, When, Why and How …

Consequence of missing metadata• Knowledge about a dataset is lost overtime

From Michener et al (1997)

Time

Time of publication

Specific details are lost rapidly e.g. Dates

General details are lost through time

Death of investigator and loss of remaining records

Retirement or career change makes access difficultAccident may

destroy data or documentation

Info

rmat

ion

Con

tent

Why is metadata useful?

• Search and locate datasets

• Assess suitability of use

• Reduces the effort required to use data– metadata leads to better information efficiency (Michener et al 1997)

Caveat...

• A balance needed– more metadata means less research (Michener et al 1997)

Recent developments

• Goals

– Comprehensive

– Standards based

– Versatile

• Approach

– 1. XML based storage structures (‘Schema’)

What is XML? • eXtensible Mark-up Language

• Similar to HTML – but consists of user-defined tags to structure textual information

• Promotes universal data access– Machine and human-readable – Open standard – Written in plain-text (ASCII)

Recent developments

• Goals

– Comprehensive

– Standards based

– Versatile

• Approach

– 1. XML based storage structures (‘Schema’)

Recent developments

• Goals

– Comprehensive

– Standards based

– Versatile

• Approach

– 1. XML based storage structures (‘Schema’)

– 2. Separate the metadata and data systems (see the demonstration following this talk)

Developing the schema

• Looked to external metadata standards and profiles

ISO 19115 – Geographic metadata standardsDC – Dublin CoreEML – Ecological Metadata Language

• Adopted universal elements

Our Metadata Schema  • 34 primary metadata elements + 105 distinct sub-

elements

• 68% match with source standards

• Grouped broadly as

– Identity (title, Id)– Content (information types, methods)– Context (location, time, purpose)– Admin (ownership, access, availability, status)

Notable features of our schema• Resources or related material

– Internal (e.g. a child)– Managed (e.g. photographs) – External (e.g. bird counts)

• Metadata containers and versioning  

Version 2

Version 1

MetadataContainer

Metadata 1

Metadata 2

Outcomes

• Improved accessibility and consistency

• XML document approach

– Portable, flexible and extendable– Readily reformated for different uses

(e.g. web, text, apps)        

• But…

– Few mandatory metadata elements– Relational database structured XML– XML tools and languages are less familiar

c.f. SQL (20+ year standard)

Acknowledgements

Data entry and administration Michelle Breach

Dept. of Conservation Liaison Elaine Wright

IT strategists and developers Jerry Cooper Nick Spencer Mark Fuglestad

Funded byFoundation for Research Science & Technology

Department of ConservationTerrestrial & Freshwater Biodiversity Information System

Plant ecologists Peter Bellingham Susan Wiser Larry Burrows Rob Allen