Attribute Convention for Data Discovery 2.0
DRAFT - Not ready for use
Version and Status
This version is designated as Version 2.0 This page always has the current version of the Attribute Convention for Data Discovery (ACDD). As it is updated, the version number at the top of the page will be updated.
See the [category page] for information on the history of this convention.
Development
Any development version of the ACDD definitions is maintained at Attribute_Convention_for_Data_Discovery_(ACDD)_Working.
Overview
This document describes attributes recommended for describing a NetCDF dataset to discovery systems such as Digital Libraries. THREDDS and other tools can use these attributes for extracting metadata from datasets, and exporting to Dublin Core, DIF, ADN, FGDC, ISO 19115 and other metadata formats. This will help systems and users locate and use data efficiently.
Alignment with NetCDF and CF Conventions
The NetCDF User Guide (NUG) provides basic recommendations for creating NetCDF files; the NetCDF Climate and Forecast Metadata Conventions (CF) provides more specific guidance. The ACDD builds upon and is compatible with these conventions; it may refine the definition of some terms in those conventions, but does not preclude the use of any attributes defined by the NUG or CF.
The NUG does not require any global attributes, though it recommends and defines two, title and history; CF specifies many more. ACDD 2.0 adopts all CF 1.6 global attributes with the exception of 'institution'; we specify 'creator_institution' and 'publisher_institution', to provide more provenance information. We also modify the syntax of the 'Conventions' attribute; we adopt the NUG recommendation to supply all conventions in a single attribute. This change has been approved by the CF Conventions Committee and will be part of CF 1.7, which is not yet published.
Attribute Crosswalks
Many of these attributes correspond to general discovery metadata content, so they are available in many metadata standards. This Attribute_Convention_for_Data_Discovery_(ACDD)_Mappings page includes a crosswalk to THREDDS, OGC CSW, ISO 19115-2 and Rubric Categories.
Additional Metadata: metadata_link attribute
The netCDF metadata model is focused on providing "use metadata" for the data included in the file (or granule). Other metadata dialects (i.e. ISO 19115) can provide information about collections and more details about the dataset. If additional metadata exists, you can make users aware of it by adding a global attribute named "metadata_link" to the netCDF file. The value of this attribute is a URL that gives the location of the more complete metadata.
Maintenance of Metadata
ACDD attributes, like all NetCDF attributes, characterize their containing (parent) granules. As NetCDF data are processed (e.g., through subsetting or other algorithms), these characteristics can be altered. The software or user processor is responsible to update these attributes as part of the processing, but some software processes and user practices leave them unchanged. This affects both consumers and producers of these files, which comprises three roles:
- developers of software tools that process NetCDF files;
- users that create new NetCDF files from existing ones; and
- end users of NetCDF files.
NetCDF file creators (the first two roles) should ensure that the attributes of output files accurately represent those files, and specifically should not "pass through" any source attribute in unaltered form, unless it is known to remain accurate. NetCDF file users (all three roles) should verify critical attribute values, and understand how the source data and metadata were generated, to be confident the source metadata is current.
The ACDD geospatiotemporal attributes present a special case, as this information is already fully defined by the CF coordinate variables (the redundant attributes are recommended to simplify access). Errors in these attributes will create an inconsistency between the metadata and data of the granule or file. The risk of these 'inconsistency errors' is highest for files that are aggregated into longer or larger products, or subset into shorter or smaller products, such as files from numerical forecast models and gridded satellite observations. For this reason, some providers of those data types may choose to omit the ACDD geospatiotemporal attributes from their files. If the ACDD geospatiotemporal attributes are present, checking them against the CF coordinate variables can serve as a partial test of the metadata's validity.
Global Attributes
Highly Recommended
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| title | A short phrase or sentence describing the dataset. Its value will be used by THREDDS as the name of the dataset and therefore should be human readable and reasonable to display in a list of such names. The "title" attribute is also recommended by the NetCDF Users Guide (NUG) and the CF conventions. |
| summary | A paragraph describing the dataset, analogous to an abstract for a paper. In many discovery systems, the title and the summary will be displayed in the results list from a search. It should therefore capture the essence of the dataset it describes. For instance, we recommend a summary of the following: type of data contained in the dataset, how the data was created (e.g., instrument X; or model X, run Y), the creator of the dataset, the project for which the data was created, the geospatial coverage of the data, and the temporal coverage of the data. |
| keywords | A comma-separated list of key words and/or phrases. Keywords may be common words or phrases, terms from a controlled vocabulary (GCMD is often used), or URIs for terms from a controlled vocabulary (see also keywords_vocabulary attribute). |
| Conventions | A list of the conventions followed by the dataset; blank space separated is recommended but commas should be used if any convention name contains blanks. For files that comply with this version of ACDD, include the term ACDD-2.0. This attribute is defined in NUG. |
Recommended
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| contributor_info | The name and role of any individuals, projects, or institutions that contributed to the creation of this data. May be presented as free text, or in a structured format compatible with conversion to ncML (e.g., insensitive to whitespace). |
| date_product_available | The date on which this data file or product was produced or distributed. Use ISO 8601 date format. While this date is like a file timestamp, the date_product_modified and date_values_modified should be used to assess the age of the contents of the file or product. |
| geospatial_lat_units | Units for the latitude axis described in "geospatial_lat_min" and "geospatial_lat_max" attributes. These are presumed to be "degree_north"; other options from udunits may be specified instead. |
| geospatial_lat_resolution | Information about the targeted spacing of points in latitude. (Format is not prescribed.) |
| geospatial_lon_units | Units for the longitude axis described in "geospatial_lon_min" and "geospatial_lon_max" attributes. These are presumed to be "degree_east"; other options from udunits may be specified instead. |
| geospatial_lon_resolution | Information about the targeted spacing of points in longitude. (Format is not prescribed.) |
| geospatial_vertical_units | Units for the vertical axis described in "geospatial_vertical_min" and "geospatial_vertical_max" attributes. These are presumed to be "meter" (of depth); other options from udunits may be specified. Note that the common oceanographic practice of using pressure for a vertical coordinate, while not strictly a depth, can be specified using the unit bar. |
| geospatial_vertical_resolution | Information about the targeted vertical spacing of points. |
| creator_uri | The unique identifier of the person principally responsible for originating this data. |
| creator_institution | The institution that originated this data; should uniquely identify the institution. |
| creator_institution_info | Additional free text information for the institution that originated this data. |
| creator_project | The scientific project that originated this data; should uniquely identify the project. |
| creator_project_info | Additional free text information for the institution that originated this data. |
| publisher_uri | The unique identifier of the person responsible for providing the data file or product. |
| publisher_institution | The institution that provided the data file or equivalent product; should uniquely identify the institution. |
| publisher_institution_info | Additional information for the institution that provided the data file or equivalent product; can include any information as free text, or in a structured format compatible with conversion to ncML (e.g., insensitive to whitespace). |
| publisher_project | The scientific project that provided the data file or equivalent product; should uniquely identify the project. |
| publisher_project_info | Additional information for the institution that provided the data file or equivalent product; can include any information as free text, or in a structured format compatible with conversion to ncML (e.g., insensitive to whitespace). |
| keywords_vocabulary | If you are using a controlled vocabulary for the words/phrases in your "keywords" attribute, this is the unique name or identifier of the vocabulary from which keywords are taken. If more than one keyword vocabulary is used, each may be presented with a prefix (e.g., "CF:NetCDF COARDS Climate and Forecast Standard Names") and a following comma, so that keywords may optionally be prefixed with the controlled vocabulary key. |
| metadata_link | A URI that gives the location of more complete metadata; a URL is recommended. |
Suggested
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| contributor_info | The name and role of any individuals, projects, or institutions that contributed to the creation of this data. May be presented as free text, or in a structured format compatible with conversion to ncML (e.g., insensitive to whitespace). |
| date_product_available | The date on which this data file or product was produced or distributed. Use ISO 8601 date format. While this date is like a file timestamp, the date_product_modified and date_values_modified should be used to assess the age of the contents of the file or product. |
| geospatial_lat_units | Units for the latitude axis described in "geospatial_lat_min" and "geospatial_lat_max" attributes. These are presumed to be "degree_north"; other options from udunits may be specified instead. |
| geospatial_lat_resolution | Information about the targeted spacing of points in latitude. (Format is not prescribed.) |
| geospatial_lon_units | Units for the longitude axis described in "geospatial_lon_min" and "geospatial_lon_max" attributes. These are presumed to be "degree_east"; other options from udunits may be specified instead. |
| geospatial_lon_resolution | Information about the targeted spacing of points in longitude. (Format is not prescribed.) |
| geospatial_vertical_units | Units for the vertical axis described in "geospatial_vertical_min" and "geospatial_vertical_max" attributes. These are presumed to be "meter" (of depth); other options from udunits may be specified. Note that the common oceanographic practice of using pressure for a vertical coordinate, while not strictly a depth, can be specified using the unit bar. |
| geospatial_vertical_resolution | Information about the targeted vertical spacing of points. |
| creator_uri | The unique identifier of the person principally responsible for originating this data. |
| creator_institution | The institution that originated this data; should uniquely identify the institution. |
| creator_institution_info | Additional free text information for the institution that originated this data. |
| creator_project | The scientific project that originated this data; should uniquely identify the project. |
| creator_project_info | Additional free text information for the institution that originated this data. |
| publisher_uri | The unique identifier of the person responsible for providing the data file or product. |
| publisher_institution | The institution that provided the data file or equivalent product; should uniquely identify the institution. |
| publisher_institution_info | Additional information for the institution that provided the data file or equivalent product; can include any information as free text, or in a structured format compatible with conversion to ncML (e.g., insensitive to whitespace). |
| publisher_project | The scientific project that provided the data file or equivalent product; should uniquely identify the project. |
| publisher_project_info | Additional information for the institution that provided the data file or equivalent product; can include any information as free text, or in a structured format compatible with conversion to ncML (e.g., insensitive to whitespace). |
| keywords_vocabulary | If you are using a controlled vocabulary for the words/phrases in your "keywords" attribute, this is the unique name or identifier of the vocabulary from which keywords are taken. If more than one keyword vocabulary is used, each may be presented with a prefix (e.g., "CF:NetCDF COARDS Climate and Forecast Standard Names") and a following comma, so that keywords may optionally be prefixed with the controlled vocabulary key. |
| metadata_link | A URI that gives the location of more complete metadata; a URL is recommended. |
Highly Recommended Variable Attributes
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| long_name | A long descriptive name for the variable (not necessarily from a controlled vocabulary). |
| standard_name |
|
| units | The units of the variables data values. This attributes value should be a valid udunits string. |
| coverage_content_type | An ISO 19115-1 code to indicate the source of the data. |
Deprecated
The following terms and definitions are still recognized, but are no longer recommended for use by ACDD.
- Metadata_Convention: removed in favor of 'Conventions'
- date_created: deleted (use cases are addressed by 'date_product_available')
- date_issued: deleted in favor of 'date_product_available'
- date_modified: deleted in favor of 'date_product_modified' and 'date_values_modified'
- institution: though recommended by CF, removed in favor more detailed attributes - 'creator_institution', 'creator_institution_info', 'publisher_institution', 'publisher_institution_info' to provide more provenance information
Conformance Test
Conformance tests are available for verson 1.1. We hope to make a conformance test for this version available.
Additional Materials
These materials are not normative and may not be in alignment with this version of ACDD.
Mappings ACDD to other metadata dialects
Attribute Convention for Data Discovery (ACDD) Mappings-
Recommended Order of Precedence
Attribute Convention for Data Discovery (ACDD) Precedence
Future Directions: Object Conventions for Data Discovery
Attribute Convention for Data Discovery (ACDD) Object Conventions
