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Part III. Appendix 1: Metadata and Data DiscoveryDEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF METADATAOne of the more difficult tasks for IOOS is gaining acceptance and compliance with the requirementto provide and maintain quality metadata. Learning to write metadata is no different thanlearning any other skill. Most skills require a lot of time and effort initially but become easier andless time-consuming with practice. The job of the IOOS system will be to provide a means for thegeneration and maintenance of metadata that will not unduly burden the data provider, but willprovide for the quality of metadata that is desired within IOOS. To accomplish this, IOOS will selector develop a master metadata management system. This system will allow data providers theflexibility to manage their metadata within a local system or through a centralized system via remoteaccess capabilities, and will not require the data provider to duplicate existing metadata andmaintain it in two or more systems. For instance, IOOS will access existing FGDC nodes (metadataservers) and harvest or point to specific data of interest to IOOS. This will also ensure that IOOSwill fit into larger projects such as the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) and internationaldata projects.IOOS will make available to data providers an easy means to generate, validate, and maintain theirmetadata. Support will be provided for parent/child metadata, the validation and approval processput in place by IOOS, and the maintenance of metadata. Data providers will come to the table withdifferent levels of expertise in this area, and therefore the system must be flexible enough to handlewhat the data providers require. This may include a “common repository” for metadata and sharedtoolsets for those data providers that do not have the resources to manage their metadata easily, butshould also allow for the data provider to manage metadata in the way they have done it in the past.Quality metadata can only be generated by someone who understands the data that are beingdocumented, and therefore it is required that the metadata be generated and maintained as close tothe collection and/or generation of that data as possible. Training opportunities, support networks,and tools will be made available to help the beginning and advanced metadata writers. One of thefirst tasks within this implementation plan is the generation of a user guide for IOOS metadata.This user guide will discuss issues such as the granularity of metadata, which should be a part ofthe system, parent/child metadata, the validation and approval process, duplicate metadata, maintenancerequirements, etc.Although the system will be built to minimize additional work by the data provider, it cannot bestressed enough that the data provider will have to provide high-quality metadata in order forIOOS to succeed. IOOS will do its part to encourage data providers to create metadata and keep itcurrent by providing tools, consulting services, and help desk support.120