[Esip-documentation] ACDD questions

Fri Apr 26 14:02:54 EDT 2013

Should be from a controlled vocabulary IMHO. BODC has (for SeaDataNet) an extension of ISO role terms, if I recall correctly. I think it isn't just for contributor roles, it's for all roles that this is needed—ISO wasn't very thorough in the first place, but there will always be new ways for people to be connected to a data set.  

I don't think we have to be restrictive (in what roles are allowed) but I think we should try to be explicit (about what a role means).

John

On Apr 26, 2013, at 10:57, Nan Galbraith <ngalbraith at whoi.edu> wrote:

> Hi John -
> 
> One other item that I think we might need to have - beyond better definitions
> for some of the existing terms -  is a CV for contributor roles. I think one exists,
> somewhere, but I'm not sure where. BODC, maybe? MMI? Or should this really
> be free text?
> 
> Thanks -
> Nan
> 
> On 4/26/13 12:51 PM, John Graybeal wrote:
>> Sorry for the noise. I pasted the wrong URL, meant to paste
>>    https://geo-ide.noaa.gov/wiki/index.php?title=NetCDF_Attribute_Convention_for_Dataset_Discovery
>> as my target space for work. Let me know if that doesn't make sense.
>> 
>> Thank you all for your advice about logging in on ESIP Fed.  I'm getting there…
>> 
>> John
>> 
>>  ...
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I'm focused on this for the next few hours today. The resources and comments are very far advanced from last time I looked in depth, hopefully I can do something reasonable in that amount of time.
>> 
>> For what it's worth, I think you're both right. So while I may produce some recommended wording updates for variables, I think a broader, more systematic alignment with the ISO capabilities is worth pushing for. More on that later.
>> 
>> Here we go.
>> 
>> John
>> 
>> On Apr 23, 2013, at 08:10, Nan Galbraith <ngalbraith at whoi.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>>> On Apr 22, 2013, at 3:37 PM, Nan Galbraith <ngalbraith at whoi.edu <mailto:ngalbraith at whoi.edu>> wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/19/13 8:15 PM, John Graybeal wrote:
>>>>>>> As I had a fair number of comments on the last set of definitions, I volunteer to produce a first revision (for discussion of course!) of any term definitions you want me to.
>>>>>> That's great. It might be a good idea to cross check against the definitions
>>>>>> that NODC has added -  as part of their NetCDF template project they wrote
>>>>>> some better descriptions. They're at nodc.noaa.gov/data/formats/netcdf/ <http://nodc.noaa.gov/data/formats/netcdf/>
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> There are a few categories of terms that need better definitions, IMHO.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 1. people:
>>>>>> creator_name (recommended)
>>>>>> publisher_name (suggested)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In a 'normal' research/observing/modeling situation, who are these people?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I think there are 2 necessary points of contact, the person who 'owns'
>>>>>> the research and gives you the go-ahead to use/publish the data, and
>>>>>> the person who put the data into the file and/or on line. You don't really
>>>>>> need to know how to contact the other contributors, even if they had equally
>>>>>> or more important roles.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I believe that NODC recommends naming the principal investigator as the 'creator' -
>>>>>> although in some circumstances there is no single PI, so maybe we should say this
>>>>>> is the person who grants the use of the data.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'm using the publisher as the person who wrote the actual file that contains
>>>>>> the terms, and I'm listing co-PIs and data processors as contributors.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 2. file times:
>>>>>> date_created (recommended)
>>>>>> date_modified (suggested)
>>>>>> date_issued (suggested)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> These could well have different meanings for model data; for my in situ data, I
>>>>>> have 2 (or, for real time data, possibly 3) useful file times; the time the last edit
>>>>>> or processing occurred, which is the version information and could be useful if
>>>>>> the underlying data has been changed,  and the time the file was written, which
>>>>>> could provide information about translation errors being corrected. (We don't update
>>>>>> files, we overwrite them; some people might need to describe the  time the
>>>>>> original file was written and time of last update?) For real time data it could also be
>>>>>> interesting to know the last time new data arrived, which could be asynchronous.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> NODC doesn't seem to use date_issued, but they have defs for created and modified.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> date_created:  "The date or date and time when the file was created.
>>>>>> ... This time stamp will never change, even when modifying the file."
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> date_modified: This time stamp will change any time information is changed in
>>>>>> this file.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 3.  Keywords - since iso uses keyword type codes instead of cramming all the
>>>>>> possible keywords (theme, place, etc) into one structure, I don't see why we don't
>>>>>> do something similar. We could use our pseudo-groups syntax; keywords_theme,
>>>>>> keywords_dataCenter ...etc.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 4. coordinate 'resolution' terms - the word resolution is a poor choice, and if
>>>>>> it's going to be kept, it needs to be defined as meaning 'spacing' or 'shape' and
>>>>>> not an indication of the precision of the coordinate. For measurements that are
>>>>>> irregularly spaced along a mooring line, it's fairly useless - unless we come up
>>>>>> with a vocabulary describing this and other possible values.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> For my data, the term might be more useful with the other definition; our depths
>>>>>> are approximate 'target depths', and, while we may know the lat/long of an anchor
>>>>>> and of a buoy (the latter being a time series, the former being a single point)  we
>>>>>> don't actually know the lat/long of any given instrument on a mooring line. The
>>>>>> watch circle of the buoy is really the 'resolution' we need to supply here.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks - Nan
> 
> 
> -- 
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> * Nan Galbraith        Information Systems Specialist *
> * Upper Ocean Processes Group            Mail Stop 29 *
> * Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution                *
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