Integrating traditional user-based search and retrieval with information technologies for metadata sharing in a global environmental change information system
✍ Scribed by Gene R. Major; Lola M. Olsen
- Publisher
- Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
- Year
- 2005
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 208 KB
- Volume
- 39
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0044-7870
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
The NASA Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) (http://gcmd.nasa.gov) is a dynamic multidisciplinary information retrieval system that holds metadata records describing Earth science data sets, their location, and their access. More than 13,000 metadata records can be searched through a Web‐based interface using controlled keywords and/or free‐text. Population of the GCMD depends on metadata content offered by Earth science data providers. The GCMD's fourtier system architecture allows the automated sharing of Earth science metadata among partners through the use of object‐oriented technologies and XML metadata. Partners have autonomy over their own metadata collections that can be searched through the GCMD's interface, thereby providing a centralized search system of distributed and shared content. In addition to user‐based search and retrieval, the GCMD architecture also allows machine‐to‐machine automated queries of the database using Java servlets over an HTTPD API protocol.