IUFRO International Union of Forest Research Organizations

1
IUFROInternational Union of Forest Research
Organizations Eero Mikkola The Increasing
Importance of Metadata in Forest Information
Gathering The Use of Information and
Communication Technology Tools in Forest
Research IUFRO-SPDC Pre-Congress Training
Course August 2005, Gympie, Australia
2
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering
Metadata is a gateway between information/data
and users of information
3
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering
1980s
Metadata - Titles and dates of folders, files
and documents - Library systems
4
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering
Today
????
Metadata
5
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering, Importance of metadata

• Why to create metadata?
• Helps user understand data
• Facilitates discovery
• Protects investment in data

6
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering, Importance of metadata

• Helps user understand data
• Provides consistency
• Focuses on key elements of data
• Helps user define the data's fitness for use
• Facilitates data transfer and translation by new
  users
• Helps people find the data they need and define
  how best to use it

7
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering, Importance of metadata

• Facilitates discovery
• Provides information to data catalogs
• An organization that takes the time to create
  and maintain quality metadata will also mostly
  likely take the time to develop good quality data
  gt Facilities quality
• Reduces workload associated with questions about
  data users don't have to keep asking producers
  questions
• Cuts overall costs allows automation of tools
  which ease overall burden and cost of data
  population and maintenance
• A key element of spatial data sharing

8
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering, Importance of metadata

• Protects investment in data
• Reduce effect of staff turnover and individual
  memory loss
• Sets the stage for data re-use and update
• Provides documentation of data sources and
  quality

9
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering

• The importance of a metadata service
• Organizations have long recognized the
  importance of metadata. However, only few have
  successfully devised and implemented such a
  service.
• There are a number of reasons for this
  disconnect the nature of the task, the state of
  most software products, and the complexity of the
  task, both technically and procedurally.

10
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering

• There are three major decisions that must be
  reached when developing a metadata service
• Agreed metadata model
• Choosing the application which will be used to
  acquire, manage, and distribute metadata
• Defining and enforcing a methodology for the use
  and maintenance of the above.

11
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering

• Metadata services/initiatives at various level
• In house - Intranet
• National level
• Regional level
• Convention level - GBIF, www.gbif.net
• Global level GFIS, www.gfis.net

12
The Increasing Importance of Metadata in Forest
Information Gathering

• Similarities and differences of metadata services
  at various level
• Data and information are same for all
• Technically metadata is also same
• Services are different from their goals and thus
  they are used for different purposes.
• gt Because of different goals of services they
  have their own target groups/users

13
Thank you for your attention! The Use of
Information and Communication Technology Tools in
Forest Research IUFRO-SPDC Pre-Congress Training
Course August 2005, Gympie, Australia