Here’s an exciting story about metadata. Seriously. IMPACT’s Analysis and Review of the Common Metadata Repository (ARC) team, led by Jeanné le Roux, recently published an article in Data Science Journal that explores the ways in which high-quality metadata powers the discovery of Earth observation data and the importance of quality assessments to make that happen.
The paper presents the framework developed by the ARC project team which is used to assess the quality of metadata records that describe NASA’s collection of approximately 8,000 Earth observation data products. To better facilitate search and discovery of these data products on the Internet, it is the descriptive metadata records, rather than the data itself, that are indexed. It is important that these records are in good shape and include all the relevant information needed to accurately find and access the data being described. The ARC framework provides a set of quality criteria — based around the aspects of correctness, completeness, and consistency — by which the team performs evaluations of a large number of metadata records in a systematic manner. By applying this framework, the team is able to identify areas of opportunity to improve the metadata records. This feedback is then provided to the people responsible for maintaining the records who can choose to update the metadata accordingly.