Subject: Re: Data Element Naming Standards
Eliot Christian (echristi@usgs.gov)
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 04:29:48 -0400
Message-Id: <199809290835.EAA10855@igsrsparc4.er.usgs.GOV> Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 04:29:48 -0400 To: gils@cni.org From: Eliot Christian <echristi@usgs.gov> Subject: Re: Data Element Naming Standards In-Reply-To: <199809281835.LAA13953@rs6a.wln.com>
On 9/28/98, Phil Coombs <pcoombs@wln.com> wrote:
> [...]
> It is time we consider the international aspects of data element naming
> and allow for data element concept mapping / crosswalking across choice
> of terminology, languages and character sets.
>
> I propose the addition of a third component of indexing.
It should be borne in mind that any particular syntax and "lexical rules"
for metadata elements would be addressed in usage guidelines outside of
the GILS Profile per se. The GILS-compliant search interface makes the
searching process independent of how data elements are represented.
> This will be the ISO equivalency of the data element concept
> (e.g., Title, Author, date-of-publication) which would be described
> in arabic numbers. [...]
I think the reference here is to ISO 23950 specifically. There are,
of course, many other ISO standards that provide references to data
elements. (EDI has tens of thousands, for example.)
> By using this convention, we could get beyond what terms we assigned
> for common, conceptually-equivalent data elements.
Viewed from the GILS perspective, that issue became community-specific
as soon as we adopted ISO 23950--this is the "semantic" approach to
interoperability.
> I have read about proposals to build some global gateway for all
> inquiries to go through and be translated. This would be unworkable.
I am not sure what proposals these may be, but I do feel that a common
metadata registry (or "semantic registry" or "ontology registry")
mechanism would be of great utility. I fully expect such registries
would be highly distributed.
> By contrast, formatting quiries to recognize the AttributeID would place
> the responsibility for concept mapping at the initiating / client site.
While we await broad consensus on metadata registry mechanisms, we can
at least establish a convention for passing semantic maps. This sort
of thing is accomplished using CGI scripts in HTTP/Z39.50 gateways, for
example. I don't think it is a big leap to encode a semantic map using
XML. As I mentioned here before, we have an immediate need for such a
mechanism in the Advanced Search Facility and we will be using it to
communicate tag maps.
Eliot Christian, US Geological Survey, 802 National Center, Reston VA 20192
echristi@usgs.gov Office 703-648-7245 FAX 703-648-7112 Home 703-476-6134
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