PROVISIONAL AGENDA

1.  ORGANIZATION OF THE MEETING

1.1 Opening remarks
1.2 Adoption of the agenda
1.3 Working arrangements

2.  REVIEW OF WMO REQUIREMENTS FOR A METADATA STANDARD

3.  REVIEW OF EXISTING RELEVANT METADATA STANDARDS

4.  RECOMMENDATIONS ON COMPREHENSIVE WMO METADATA STANDARDS

5.  XML STRUCTURES FOR REPRESENTING METADATA

6.  FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

7.  CLOSURE OF THE MEETING

1.1 Opening remarks

A meeting of the CBS Expert Team on Integrated Data Management will open at 0900 on Monday 5 November 2001 at the headquarters of the WMO in Geneva. Travel information will be available via the WMO Web server at http://www.wmo.ch/web/www/WDM/ET-IDM/documents.html and will be mailed only on request.

CBS, at its twelfth session in November 2000, established the ET on Integrated Data Management and tasked it to:

1. Develop a metadata standard to be used in future WMO information systems. The standard should be defined as a WMO community profile within the context of the ISO metadata standard. This would include definition of new elements and extensions to the ISO standard and definition of keyword and code lists;

2. Recommend a standard Internet technology representation of the metadata for use on the World Wide Web (e.g. XML);

3. Advise on reorganization of the Guide on WWW Data Management and coordinate the development of the WMO Guide on Data Management, including preparation of the sections relating to the WMO metadata standards.

1.2 Adoption of the agenda

The provisional agenda will be submitted to the session for adoption.

1.3 Working arrangements

The meeting may wish to agree to working arrangements (working hours etc.). It is planned to deal with all agenda items in plenary. The working language of the meeting and documentation will be English.

The meeting is expected to cover complex technical and managerial issues. If possible, working papers on these issues should be prepared in advance of the session so they can be reviewed by all team members prior to the session. Therefore, experts are invited to prepare working papers on issues within their areas of expertise and to send these documents to the WMO Secretariat via mail, fax or electronic mail in ASCII, HTML or MS Word formats. Documents can be sent to the Secretariat by fax to +41-22-730-8021 or by electronic mail to mcguirk_d@gateway.wmo.ch.

The wide range of data and products that could be of potential use to the various WMO programmes creates a need for extensive metadata to describe them. Furthermore, to facilitate identification and location of this information across a number of programmes, basic descriptive or directory-level metadata should be made available and searchable according to an agreed standard.

One of the most crucial components required for the further development of the Future WMO Information System (FWIS) is a WMO catalogue of products. The Interprogramme Task Team on the FWIS has determined that the catalogue is of the highest priority. The evolution of the store and forward system and implementation of the future request/reply system both depend upon the catalogue to define and manage their products. The foundation of the catalogue is a WMO directory-level metadata standard.

At its twelfth session, CBS tasked the ET on Integrated Data Management to develop a metadata standard to be used in future WMO information systems. Recognizing the existing work being done in this area by other international bodies, CBS stated that the standard should be defined as a WMO community profile within the context of the ISO metadata standard. This would include definition of new elements and extensions to the ISO standard and definition of keyword and code lists.

3. REVIEW OF EXISTING RELEVANT METADATA STANDARDS

3.1 REVIEW OF ISO DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD FOR GEOGRAPHIC METADATA

The International Standards Organization has developed a draft International Standard for metadata to provide a structure for describing digital geographic data. It defines metadata elements, provides a schema and establishes a common set of metadata terminology, definitions, and extension procedures. In the words of the standard it is meant to:

1. Provide data producers with appropriate information to characterise their geographic data properly.

2. Facilitate the organization and management of metadata for geographic data.

3. Enable users to apply geographic data in the most efficient way by knowing its basic characteristics.

4. Facilitate data discovery, retrieval and reuse. Users will be better able to locate, access, evaluate, purchase and utilize geographic data.

5. Enable users to determine whether geographic data in a holding will be of use to them.

WMO has been represented in the team that has developed the ISO metadata standard and the standard should be able to accommodate WMO requirements. However, the ISO standard is very complex and the Expert Team will be invited to carefully review the standard to verify its applicability to WMO requirements.

3.2 REVIEW OF PROPOSED WMO DIRECTORY CONTENT STANDARD

The wide range of data and products that could be of potential use to the various WMO programmes creates a need for extensive metadata to describe them. Furthermore, to facilitate identification and location of this information across a number of programmes, basic descriptive or discovery-level metadata should be made available and searchable according to an agreed standard. It is important that the extent of this discovery-level information be detailed enough to provide critical information but simple enough to be easily collected and maintained. The team will be invited to consider proposals for a discovery-level metadata standard for WMO. At a meeting of meeting of the Implementation Coordination Team On Data Representation And Codes in April 2000, a proposal was made for a Standard on Directory Content. This is itself a definition of metadata standards and was designed to be consistent with the ISO standard.

3.3 REVIEW OF METADATA STANDARDS FROM NMHSs

NMHSs and other bodies associated with WMO may have developed metadata standards internally that are relevant to the development of a WMO standard. Experts are invited to identify where these might exist and to make documentation available to the Team for the meeting.

In meteorology (and other physical sciences) digital data is an attempt to model and describe the real world for use in computer analysis and display. In this view of the world some parameters are approximated, others are simplified, and some are ignored. To ensure that data are not misused, the assumptions and limitations affecting the creation of data must be fully documented. Metadata allows a dataset to be fully described so that users can understand the assumptions and limitations and evaluate the dataset's applicability for their intended use. Proper documentation can provide users with the information they need to use it properly. This is especially important in interdisciplinary studies where users may be far removed from producers and unfamiliar with their routine assumptions and compromises regarding the collection of data and creation of products.

The various Programmes of WMO have a wide range of requirements for documentation of datasets. Thus, it will be difficult to develop a standard for comprehensive metadata that will meet the needs of all Programmes. The team will consider this issue and will develop recommendations on this topic.

Key to the success of a metadata standard will be ease of use in real situations. A standard that requires all possible metadata to be supplied in all situations would rapidly fall into disuse. One possible way to ensure that the standard is effective might be to make it hierarchical, so that users can select the appropriate level of detail for their applications. The Team must explore how the standard may be defined to ensure that it is usable in practice.

XML is rapidly becoming a standard for exchanging information between applications, as well as for providing information on which the formatting of data for display in a browser may be defined. Industry standards (e.g. SOAP) are being defined to allow the exchange of information between applications using the XML standard, with the expectation that many business transactions will use XML as their standard means of data exchange. Although there are many possible ways of representing WMO data in XML, it is theoretically possible to use the metadata standard to derive an XML standard for representing data. This would bring many advantages, not least the requirement to maintain only one standard rather than multiple standards. The Expert Team will prepare a framework that will be used to map between XML and the metadata standard.

6. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF METADATA STANDARDS

In light of the experience gained during its deliberations, the team will advise the chair on its future work programme.

The meeting will close at 1700 on Thursday 8 November 2001.