Speaker
Description
In the pursuit of making data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) (Wilkinson et al., 2016: https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18), the need for well and comprehensively described datasets is decisive. In order to facilitate interoperability and reusability, it is essential to have self-describing data, which can only be achieved by enriching data with metadata. Within the Earth System science community, the NetCDF data format has become the quasi-standard, supported by general metadata standards such as the CF conventions (Climate and Forecast, https://cfconventions.org/) and more specific ones like AtMoDat (https://www.atmodat.de/) for atmospheric modeling. However, current NetCDF metadata schemas often have limitations that hinder seamless data integration, findability and reuse through metadata portals. This project aims to bridge these gaps and harmonize the diverse schemas to ensure a more robust and unified metadata framework.
From the DataHub, the central data infrastructure of the Research Field Earth and Environment within the Helmholtz Association, an initiative was launched with the objective of developing harmonized guidelines that would unify the diverse sub-communities within both the observational and modeling fields. Under the direction of the centers KIT and Hereon, the initiative's approach entails a comprehensive examination of existing guidelines, followed by the integration and expansion of these guidelines to address the diverse needs within the Earth and Environment disciplines. The outcome will be a set of comprehensive guidelines designed to enhance data interoperability and reusability, and tools to facilitate their adoption.
Key milestones include:
- Reconciling attributes in the draft guidelines.
- Technical implementation of the guidelines document
- Development of machine-readable templates and validation tools.
- Provision of tailored tools (e.g. Jupyter Notebooks) for user-friendly implementation of metadata profiles based on the guidelines.
A notable enhancement would be the implementation of these guidelines in repositories, enabling automatic extraction and mapping of NetCDF metadata to repository-specific metadata fields.
This initiative aims to foster a more unified and efficient data management practice within the Earth and Environment community, ultimately enhancing the utility and accessibility of scientific data.
In addition, please add 3 to 5 keywords.
NetCDF, metadata schema, DataHub
| Please assign yourself (presenting author) to one of the following groups. | Data professionals and stewards |
|---|---|
| For whom will your contribution be of most interest? | Researchers |
