LTER-core-metabase is a relational database model based on the GCE LTER Metabase, with adaptations by MCR, SBC, and BLE LTER sites. The project provides a database schema for metadata about ecological data packages. The design is influenced heavily by the Ecological Metadata Language (EML). There is also an associated R package, MetaEgress, that produces EML for a data package, enabling the information manager to quickly generate metadata for package archiving. The schema and R package are available on GitHub, with the schema represented as a set of SQL scripts to facilitate diffs.
The Environmental Data Initiative (EDI) is defining a constrained profile of EML to streamline scripts and software for the broader community, but which is not tied to any specific back end storage system. EML was designed to be extensible, but we have observed EML creators converging on a set of elements. De facto then, a profile is emerging, and that profile for EML can define the specs of a common interface, which facilitates writing shared tools against different backend metadata storage systems. For example, LTER-Core-Metabase (a back-end), maps to the EML profile through views that decouple the outward-facing appearance from the back-end implementation. This session will share the current state of LTER-core-metabase and discuss advancing the project and its ties to EDI's profile for EML to improve data management system sustainability.
View Session Recording on YouTube.
Presenter: Gastil Gastil-Buhl
Talk Title: A Metadata Database and Usage Patterns in the LTER Network
Slides: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.9399512
