Discovering Metadata with Astun Technology

Presented by Jo Cook with Eoghan Hennessy

We are Astun Technology, and we create world-class cloud-hosted geospatial solutions on open source foundations

Today we'll be talking about data discovery and metadata

Hi, I'm Jo Cook

I'm the Data Discovery Lead at Astun Technology

Eoghan Hennessy is co-hosting

He's a Project Manager at Astun with responsibility for iShare in the Cloud and Metadata Enterprise Solutions

Some background

Astun Technology manage and support metadata catalogs for Scottish Government, the Environment Agency, DEFRA, and many regional authorities

Our work includes developing the plugin to allow GeoNetwork to support the Gemini 2.3 metadata standard, and we are Project Steering Group members and committers to both code and documentation.

What is metadata?

Metadata is a way of describing data, giving you the information you need to ensure it's fit for purpose.

It's generally stored using a common format, in a catalog, with persistent identifiers and links back to the source data, so it can be discovered and shared easily.

 Debora Cartagena Pixnio, CC0

But...

Metadata is often viewed as a legislative box-ticking exercise that is hard, costs time and money, and seems to have little direct benefit.*cough, INSPIRE, cough*

Times have changed!

The Internet

We've gone beyond creating data and metadata for internal use. Now, data is shared on corporate intranets, on public-facing portals, and in national data catalogs, and efficient use of data is crucial in solving many of today's crises...

excel

Astun have enhanced and expanded our metadata offering to meet these new challenges, and to help you meet emerging best practice guidelines for data management recently issued by the Geospatial Commission

Expanded product

We use GeoNetwork, the leading open source geospatial metadata catalog, as the core of our product. We've now added Metadata Crawler, also open source, based on Talend ETL, for bulk metadata creation.

We've also expanded the functionality of GeoNetwork, which we'll talk more about shortly

Overview

Best Practice

Geospatial Commission Best Practice Guides state that data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR)

fair principles

Findable

Searches start in search engines, not in portals, so we need to make sure our datasets are search-engine-optimised for both good rankings and well-displayed results

  • We've added structured data into Gemini 2.3,
  • Created reports showing records with data quality issues,
  • Improved GeoNetwork SEO

#1 Record in GeoNetwork

#2 Structured Data

#3 Google Search

#4 Social Sharing

twitter card

Data Quality Reports

data quality

For our iShare customers, we've made it easy to link layers in iShare Maps or GIS to metadata records so you can provide additional context for the data you display online

Linking in iShare

Accessible

Metadata solutions need to be easy to use, for creators and users, and it should be easy to access the required data

  • We use Metadata Crawler to do the hard work of creating initial metadata records for all of your datasets so you don't have to do it manually,
  • contribute to accessibility improvements in GeoNetwork,
  • and have made the editor in Gemini 2.3 much easier to use

(Not metadata crawler)

Gemini 2.3 editor improvements

better guidance

In iShare GIS, you can search for metadata directly in the application, helping you identify and display the data you need, quickly and easily

Metadata in iShare GIS

isharegis

Interoperable

Metadata and data need to be in a format that other people or machines can consume

  • We've implemented support for non-spatial metadata,
  • support for feature catalogs (ISO19110),
  • and have a tool for converting online vocabularies into a format GeoNetwork can use for keywords

Non-Spatial Metadata

Feature Catalog

In iShare, records can have a direct reference back to the Spatial Data Warehouse, and the iShare View and Download Service URLs, linking everything together in a way that's easy to maintain

Linking back to iShare

Reusable

Data should be in formats that can be shared, with quality metadata to ensure it is signed off for publication, used correctly, and is fit for purpose

  • We can check that links to View and Download services are working correctly,
  • can send automated reminders when datasets are due or overdue an update
  • and are working on snippets to allow you to indicate data is fit for release

Link Checker

Overdue Reminders

overdue reminder

For our all users, including iShare, we can provide separate public and private catalog endpoints, giving a clear separation between metadata they wish to make publicly available, and that which should be accessible only within their organisation.

Public and Private endpoints

All of this can be deployed quickly and easily on our resilient cloud infrastructure, whether you're an iShare customer or not, and whether you have existing metadata or not!

Making your data...

  • FINDABLE with structured data and GeoNetwork improvements,
  • ACCESSIBLE with Metadata Crawler and Gemini 2.3 editor enhancements,
  • INTEROPERABLE with non-spatial and feature catalogs,
  • REUSABLE by ensuring links to data are correct and sending update reminders

Thank You!

Any questions?

Contact sales@astuntechnology.com for more details

Discovering Metadata with Astun Technology