Linked Open Data, Provenance, Metadata and Standards-based Services - Strategies for Discovery, Fusion and Use

This hands-on workshop highlights how existing GIS metadata, governed by OGC and ISO, can be translated into Linked Open Data that can be automatically discovered, translated, and integrated with biodiversity modeling services.

Part I

The workshop will commence with a description of popular Linked Open Data ontologies for representing provenance (PROV-O), environmental observations (OBOE), and geospatial data (DCAT). From this basis, the workshop will show how these different ontologies can be assembled to form a unified ontology that adequately describes environmental data sourced as OGC services. Additionally, the workshop will describe how the unique grouping of OGC, ISO, and CF metadata employed at EDAC (http://edac.unm.edu) is mapped to the resulting amalgamated environmental ontology. The first session will conclude with a demo of how EDAC metadata was harvested into LOD and used to drive the generation of biodiversity models supported by Lifemapper (http://lifemapper.org).

Part II

The workshop will continue by asking participants that currently publish OGC data access services to describe their “extensional” metadata standards employed. From this, we can take a poll to understand the metadata “space” employed by different DAACs and data providers. Those who employ OGC can register with our system and have their metadata translated to LOD according our Part I ontology. We can then demo how their data can then be automatically discovered and integrated with Lifemapper.

The workshop will continue with a discussion of how other centers can leverage the metadata structure employed at EDAC. We can focus on extensions to our ontology and mapping schemes to support other providers who may employ a different set of metadata standards.