EML

This is a request for additional fields regarding metadata maintenance that I am
filing for Xiaoping Wang.

----- Original request from Xiaoping Wang -----------
Dear eml-dev:

As mentioned in my email to Matt and Peter (see below), providing necessary
timestamp inforamtion for the EML metadata document is important not only to
metadata generators but also to metadata users. Both
/eml/dataset/maintenance/description and
/eml/dataset/maintenance/maintenanceUpdateFrequency in EML schemas are used for
description of dataset, not for the metadata document itself. Although we can
use /eml/additionalMetadata to say something about the metadata document, I
believe that the timestamp information about the EML metadata document is so
important that it needs to be highlighted. The following is my recommendataion
about the way you can provide more information about the metadata itself.

In the /eml/dataset/res:ResourceGroup, instead of using metadataProvider as one
of the elements, use metadataInformation as suggested below:
<metadataInformation>
A sequency of
<metadataProvider> required (comment: inforamtion
about metadata providers is listed here)
<metadataCreationDate> required (comment: the date when
the metadata document is originally created)
<metadateMaintenance> Optional (comment: this element is
used when the metadata document needs to be updated in the future)
A sequency of
<lastUpdateDate> required (comment: the date of last
metadata update)
<oldVule> required (comment: for example, the
endDate for rangeOfDates, numberOfRecords for an entity (table), size of entity
(table)........ These values will be changed after new data are loaded into the
dataset)
<updateFrequence> required (comment: by comapring
updateFrequency and lastUpdateDate, metadata developers know when they need to
update their metadata document, and metadata users know if the metadata document
describes the most current information about the dataset)

These are the necessary elements that I think they should be provided in EML
metadata document. Hope my recommendation helps.

Thank you very much for your support.

Xiaoping Wang
PMEL /NOAA

---------- End request ----------
The full email thread regarding this request can be seen in the EML-dev email
archive here:
http://www.ecoinformatics.org/pipermail/eml-dev/2005-February/001076.html