Data Catalog Side Meeting

The following points were presented and discussed (see File:AQ SOLTA 2011-Data Catalog side meeting.pdf)

Catalog architectures

   * Centralized catalog
   * Distributed catalog
   * Broker catalog

GI-cat, aka EuroGEOSS Discovery Broker: a broker catalog to federate heterogeneous standard services (part of the GEOSS Common Infrastructure)

   * Catalog services (CSW, OpenSearch, ...)
   * Inventory services (THREDDS, WAF, ...)
   * Access services (WCS, WMS, ...)

Broker catalog use cases

  * Addition of new heterogeneous server nodes to the existing capabilities (the MACC WCS was added)
  * Addition of new interfaces to the available services
  * Using GI-cat through the GI-go geobrowser client
  * Using GI-cat through the GI-portal light client

Discovery standards

   * Metadata standards (ISO 19115/ISO 19139)
   * ISO19139 publishing mechanisms (FileSystem, Web Accessible Folder-WAF, Native XML Database-NXD, CSW/ISO)
   * CSW queryables review (ISO properties for discovery)

Access

   * OGC services (WCS, WMS, WFS, SOS)
   * Metadata conventions (CI_OnlineResource) for OWS data access
   * Brokered-access (EuroGEOSS access broker)

Interoperability

   * The Air Quality Community Catalog (metadata and service interfaces, functionalities and role)
   * Test outcomes of GI-cat federating the Air Quality catalog
   * uFind functionalities and features (with a demo of uFind faceted-search); the facets are encoded in metadata keywords, as key-value-pairs with the syntax <facet>:<value>

Other issues

   * AQ metadata for discovery: what are the facets of description for AQ data?
   * AQ data granularity level
   * How can the AQ Community Catalog and GI-cat complement each other effectively?

Discussion summary

We should collaborate for raising awareness of GCI principles among the AQ CoP, for example: about semantic discovery, where there already exist an AQ controlled vocabulary (derived from CF conventions); about integration and reuse of access facilitators/helpers (uFind, GI-axe)

Three possible practical actions with respect to EuroGEOSS:

  * Shepherd the AQCC into EuroGEOSS
  * Harmonize  AQCC and EuroGEOSS (e.g. wrt semantics)
  * Leverage EuroGEOSS accessors/adaptors