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Improving the documentation and ndability of data services and
repositories: A review of (meta)data management approaches
Tom´
aˇ
s ˇ
Rezník
a
,
*
, Lieven Raes
b
, Andrew Stott
c
, Bart De Lathouwer
d
, Andrea Perego
e
,
1
,
Karel Charv´
at
f
, ˇ
Stˇ
ep´
an Kafka
f
a
Masaryk University, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Brno, Czech Republic
b
Digitaal Vlaanderen, Brussels, Belgium
c
University of Cambridge, Centre for Science and Policy, Cambridge, United Kingdom
d
Open Geospatial Consortium, Wayland, USA
e
European Parliament, Luxembourg
f
Help Service – Remote Sensing Ltd., Beneˇ
sov, Czech Republic
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Metadata review
Open linked metadata
Open linked data
Geodata
Findability
Search engines
ABSTRACT
This scientic review paper aims at challenging a common point of view on metadata as a necessary evil and
something mandatory to the data creating and dataset publishing process. Metadata are instead presented as a
crucial element to ensure the ndability of data services and repositories. This paper describes a way through
four levels of metadata management and publication, from default unstructured data, through schema-based
metadata with literal values and/or URIs, towards linked open (meta)data providing explicit linkage between
reliable data resources. Such research was conducted within the European Union’s project PoliVisu. Special
attention is given to the following: (1) guidance on publication aimed at the broad audience of search engine
users and (2) the publication of geo (meta)data not only via standard technologies, such as the OGC Catalogue
Service for Web and open data portals, but also through leading search engines (that are Schema.org-based).
1. Introduction
The importance of metadata is often underestimated. For data users,
metadata are commonly regarded as a necessary evil and something
mandatory to the data creation and dataset publishing process. Meta-
data specialists - a small group of specialists in the IT, geo-communities,
scientic, and archive communities - have their particular conceptions
of an ideal metadata description. Today, several metadata approaches
subsume different levels of effort, complexity, and prot (Dublin Core,
2020; FGDC, 1998; ISO 19115, 2003; ISO 19115, 2014; W3C, 2020b;
JoinUp, 2020). Metadata are a crucial element in data-driven decision
making because of the essential link between reliable data and the
reliability of the decision outcome. They play an essential role during
the data collection process regarding dataset characteristics, prove-
nance, and data quality. The concept of metadata, as presented within
this review, stems from research conducted in the PoliVisu project
(PoliVisu, 2020).
The 1990s and the beginning of the new millennia could be char-
acterized as an era of metadata enlightenment. The importance of
metadata was stressed where applicable, and the (misleading
2
) deni-
tion of “data about data” was emphasized on almost all relevant occa-
sions, such as scientic conferences, scientic/technical papers,
workshops, and commercial (software) presentations, etc. (Weibel et al.,
1995; Shien-Chiang et al., 2003; FGDC, 1998; Jensen et al., 2000). This
period culminated in the adoption of several legally-binding texts that
require metadata creation as well as their maintenance. For instance, in
Europe, the INSPIRE directive (European Commission, 2007) and it’s
(chronologically the rst) accompanying Commission Regulation, No
1205/2008 on metadata (European Commission, 2008), are the most
evident proofs of the above-described efforts originating from the 1990s.
The primary motivation of the INSPIRE Directive is clear: (geo)data can
only be shared and re-used if they are ndable. The FAIR Guiding
Principles for scientic data management and stewardship are being
followed across the world (Wilkinson et al., 2016).
* Corresponding author. Masaryk University, Department of Geography, Kotl´
aˇ
rsk´
a 2, 611 37, Brno, Czech Republic.
E-mail address: tomas.reznik@sci.muni.cz (T. ˇ
Rezník).
1
The views expressed are purely those of the author and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an ofcial position of the European Parliament.
2
Metadata describe various assets except for data; such as Web services, applications, models; eld sessions, projects, sensors etc. (ISO 19115, 2003).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Computers and Geosciences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cageo
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2022.105194
Received 2 October 2020; Received in revised form 16 November 2021; Accepted 10 July 2022
The next era, since 2004, is most commonly referred to as the era of
the “Semantic Web” (W3C, 2015a). It is characterized as an extension of
the World Wide Web (WWW) rather than a new concept. The principle
remains the same as in the INSPIRE Directive case, i.e., to re-use and
share data across the WWW, with the intention of obtaining more
knowledge from the ood of existing data. The Semantic Web Frame-
work is considered as an integrator across different contents, informa-
tion systems, and communities. It has been acknowledged as a feature of
the WWW since 1989 in a paper by the founder of both the WWW and
the originator of the term “Semantic Web”, Tim Berners-Lee.
Semantic metadata are metadata that describe the “meaning” of data
(Melton and Buxton, 2006) in order to promote them for re-use and
sharing. Another benet of semantic metadata is not commonly
mentioned: the revoking of the articial boundary between data and
metadata.
The contemporary desire for everything open, interconnected, cus-
tomizable, shareable, scalable, and t for use with articial intelligence
applications may create the impression that the Semantic Web and its
application are followers of traditional approaches, including metadata.
This document is a guide about whether to:
● remain using non-semantic metadata approaches;
● follow semantic metadata approaches: and if so, at which level;
● combine both approaches.
This paper provides a review of (section 3), and guidance at a deci-
sion making level (section 4) on whether, and, if so, to what extent, a
shift towards semantic metadata approaches should be made by a
metadata creator/administrator. It also shows how such modication
should be made in order for it to be the most benecial and cost-efcient
at the same time (sections 5 and 6).
2. Methods and related work
This study aims to provide geo-based communities with a compari-
son and evaluation of advances in metadata development towards the
open linked (meta)data paradigm, as well as the motivation to adopt this
paradigm. The concept of open linked (meta)data enables the articial
boundary between data and metadata maintained in the geosciences
(and other domains) to be annulled. Such an articial boundary origi-
nates from separate conceptualisations of metadata, e.g., in the case of
Dublin Core (Dublin Core, 2020), CSDGM (FGDC, 1998), and ISO 19115
(ISO 19115, 2003; ISO 19115, 2014).
The interoperability, exibility, and openness of metadata have
become crucial questions for any location-based information system
since the number of assets that need to be described through metadata
has multiplied.
We may identify many studies on metadata in geosciences, including
linked open (meta)data approaches, as described in detail below. As far
as the authors are aware, no study similar to this one has been performed
so far. This study provides a synthesizing picture in contrast to state-of-
the-art studies, as it comprises the following three major features: (1) a
review of metadata management in geosciences, explaining the evolu-
tions/revolutions in metadata approaches & metadata publication sys-
tems, (2) guidance on publication aimed at the broad audience of search
engines users, and (3) guidance on whether, and, if so, to what extent, a
shift towards semantic metadata approaches should be undertaken.
Geosciences make up the sixth largest component within the Linked
Open Data (LOD) cloud, after life sciences, government, linguistics,
publications, and social networking (McCrae, 2020a).
Scientic papers indexed at the Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics,
2020) and applicable to metadata within geosciences were analysed
from the following points of view:
● numbers of available papers concerning the ten most common
phrases related to the scope of this paper (see Fig. 1 for results);
●analysis of review papers relevant to the scope of open linked met-
adata; both within and beyond geosciences; (see Fig. 2 for results);
● analysis of papers relevant to the scope of open linked metadata
concerning applicability at the following levels (see Fig. 3 for
results):
○ inspirations beyond geosciences that may apply to geosciences,
○ applications that are entirely or partly related to geosciences (as a
multidisciplinary approach).
In general, the topic of metadata is strongly accented in geosciences.
The description of an application accompanied by metadata is the most
common one (Di et al., 2009; Ho et al., 2011; Maue et al., 2012; Zhang
et al., 2013; Da Silva et al., 2014; Kalantari et al., 2014; Hu et al., 2015;
Laa et al., 2016; Palma et al., 2016; Reznik et al., 2016; McGee et al.,
2017; Neumaier et al., 2018). Such papers mostly deal with an explicitly
dened scope, like the integration of open linked metadata into cloud
platforms, sensor webs, geovisual analytics, Volunteer Geographic In-
formation, e-government, libraries for geo-resources, cartographic
models, and Web services. The only geo application of open linked
metadata to open data, in general, has so far been presented by Neu-
maier et al. (2018).
The books by Moellering et al. (2005) and Nogueras-Iso et al. (2005)
still contain the most comprehensive overviews of international as well
as national metadata initiatives, structures and standards, despite being
published fteen years ago. Since then, we may identify a number of
relevant studies dealing, for example, with the following aspects: posi-
tioning metadata in the framework of international standardization
(Furner, 2020), the evaluation of and outlook on the international
standardization of geographic information metadata (Brodeur et al.,
2019), and metadata life cycles, spirals, use cases, hierarchies, and their
interconnections through links (Habermann, 2018). An analysis of types
of metadata and their use by Danko (2012) has a unique position as a
similar study has not since been published. The management of meta-
data collections remains an open challenge, primarily concerning their
completeness, topicality, and accuracy, as Giles (2011) described.
Analysis of all the studies examined for this paper conrmed the
following. Dublin Core (Dublin Core, 2020) and ISO 19115 (ISO 19115,
2003; ISO 19115, 2014; together with related ISO, 19100 series stan-
dards) remain the only two signicant players regarding international
metadata standards for geosciences. Australia and New Zealand
(ANZLIC, 2020), China (Baiquan et al., 2013), Europe (European Com-
mission, 2008.) and the United States of America (FGDC, 1998.) are all
examples countries/regions shifting towards ISO 19115 and Dublin Core
in geosciences, although national metadata standards are also being
used in parallel.
Only ve review papers were found concerning open linked meta-
data in geosciences. Smits and Friis-Christenson (2006) as well as
Govedarica et al. (2010) discuss the potential of open linked metadata in
general. Di et al. (2009) present an in-depth discussion for sensor met-
adata. Such work was extended by Tagliolato et al. (2019), who devel-
oped semantic proles for SensorML descriptions. An in-depth
discussion of Earth observation data is provided by Harris and Olby
(2001). The most comprehensive recent review paper on the topic of
semantic geoinformation modelling was written by Kokla and Guilbert
(2020). One section of this paper is dedicated to semantic search and
knowledge discovery that is based on ontologies. No review paper with a
holistic view of metadata in geosciences has yet been found. The most
comprehensive summaries have so far been published by W3C/OGC
Spatial Data on Web Best Practices (W3C, 2017b). The presented
research is in line with these best practices, as it follows and enhances
them in terms of open linked metadata.
This review aims to ll relevant knowledge gaps with respect to
metadata approaches and publication systems at various levels. The
concept of open linked metadata is emphasized as the most novel one,
and as the one not described sufciently in existing papers.
T. ˇ
Rezník et al.
3. Characteristics of metadata approaches & metadata
publication systems
This section provides an overview at the management level of
different stages of metadata approaches. These metadata (management)
approaches are tightly connected to metadata publication systems. The
primary intention of the following text is to present an overview that is
demarcated by historic milestones. Note that the presented levels indi-
cate different metadata approaches; there is no intention to compare
levels as better or worse. The main difference is historical: a level with a
lower number was created earlier. Nevertheless, metadata have been
produced at all levels now and will presumably also continue to be in the
future.
The various metadata approaches (see also use cases in Supple-
mentary material 1) presented in this section can also be understood in
the following way:
● Level 0 (section 3.1.1) is the default unstructured metadata used
within many typical IT systems.
● Level 1 (section 3.1.2) represents a revolution that changes the
paradigm of metadata management and publication to schema-
based metadata with literal values.
● Level 2 (section 3.1.3) is an evolution of Level 1, with an emphasis on
the usage of unique identiers in addition to literals whenever
applicable, giving schema-based metadata with unique
identiers.
● Level 3 (section 3.1.4) represents a further revolution that changes
the paradigm of metadata management and publication, as it
removes the articial border between data and metadata. The met-
adata is itself linked open (meta)data.
The terms ‘revolution’ and ‘evolution’ are used here in the following
ways. ‘Revolution’ means that the metadata management from the
previous level is thrown out and entirely replaced by a new one. In
contrast ‘evolution’ implies that the majority of the features of the prior
level are kept.
3.1. The data management step-up process
3.1.1. Level 0: default unstructured metadata
The most basic level of metadata management relies solely on
automatically created metadata in a system. Typical examples in a data
repository are le size or date of last modication, or information
implicitly associated with a data resource, such as a le name or type of
le (format).
Three primary benets may be dened for Level 0 metadata
management as follows:
1. Easy to deploy. Automatically/implicitly managed metadata are a
part of several IT systems, including database solutions. In many
cases, automatic/implicit metadata management is the default one.
Even if not, it can be deployed quickly from the administrator’s
console. Level 0 does not require any specialized metadata software,
as metadata remain a natural part of data. As a consequence of such
tight bindings, the life cycle of metadata is equal to the life cycle of
data.
2. User-friendliness. No training is needed, as metadata are so simple
that everyone understands metadata elements like le size, le
name, date of last modication, access rights etc.
3. Tight (meta)data bindings. Metadata are automatically created/
updated/deleted together with the data they describe. Life cycles of
data and metadata are equal.
The simple approach of Level 0 also brings challenges that are
tightly connected to the benets of easy deployment, user-friendliness
and tight (meta)data bindings:
1. Fixed metadata elements. Metadata elements are clear to users;
however, they are based on the capabilities of the used system. Their
customization/extension is usually not supported (or to a minimal
extent). It is very complicated, or even not feasible, to add other
metadata elements, such as spatial extent, even if there is a user
requirement.
2. Absence of publication. Metadata are presented only within a
system; their export and/or presentation in a different way from the
default one is not supported.
3. Limited ndability. Metadata are presented only at the level of data
display. For example, searching for relevant data according to given
criteria is not supported, i.e., in a catalogue service based on meta-
data. Findability capabilities are limited only to metadata automat-
ically created/implicitly associated with a data resource if supported
by the application logic of the used system.
3.1.2. Level 1: schema-based metadata with literal values
“Traditional”, i.e. non-semantic, metadata approaches can be char-
acterised as the management of textual key-value pairs. For instance, we
have a key “title” and value “MySampleGeodata”. Such a concept is at
least as old as relational databases (Codd, 1970) and has remained in use
since the 1970s. All the many different metadata standards and deni-
tions vary, among others, in the following aspects:
● Wrapper: whether metadata are used as stand-alone data (ISO
19115, 2003; ISO 19115, 2014) or as a fraction of something bigger
(Dublin Core, 2020), like a Website, database, Web server response,
or a table linked to other data etc.;
● Complexity and structure: a metadata record could be represented
by a at list of (by default up to 15) key-value pairs (as in Dublin
Core, 2020), through a more complex structure is possible, with
dozens of metadata elements and very complex structures (as in
GeoDCAT-, 2015.), hundreds of metadata elements, and several hi-
erarchical levels (as in ISO 19115, 2003; ISO 19115, 2014).
● Exchange format: This could be null, in the case of metadata
managed in a table within an internal database, or it could be CSV
(Comma Separated Value); export table structures, such as XLS
(Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet) up to XML (eXtensible Markup Lan-
guage), according to the standards’ XML schema denition; and RDF
(Resource Description Framework – W3C, 2014a). The Level 1
(“traditional”) approaches encode metadata in any of the above-
mentioned (and several other) exchange formats, including their
combinations. However, not all the formats are “self-describing”.
Consumers of exchange formats such as CSV and XLS would need to
know that they contain metadata in a particular layout (which might
mean a further level of metadata!), or the CSV or XLS produced might
have to comply with strict standards to be ingestible into established
catalogues or search services.
● Publication: in general, a broad portfolio of cataloguing solutions is
available. However, the given structure determines which publica-
tion tools are suitable. For instance, the OGC Catalogue Service for
the Web (OGC, 2016) supports by default a structure based on Dublin
Core, but, through its application proles, also structures following
ISO 19115/19119, ebRIM (registries) (OGC, 2006), or (North
American) CSDGM (FGDC, 1998).
Level 1: schema-based metadata with literal values address the
challenges of Level 0 in terms of xed metadata elements, absence of
publication, and limited ndability. The following benets document
the shift towards Level 1:
1. Strict, yet exible, structure. A structure that follows a given
schema is the essential feature of Level 1. Such an approach brings a
number of clearly dened metadata elements and their organisation.
Metadata elements are commonly dened by their names, textual
descriptions, cardinalities (including obligations), data types, and
T. ˇ
Rezník et al.
domains. However, a user may set up his/her metadata prole, as far
as it follows the rules given by the schema. A user may change an
optional metadata element to conditional/mandatory, or change the
data type from a character string to a code list, etc. Under certain
conditions, a user may also add his/her new metadata elements that
are not included in the schema.
2. Metadata publication. The schema is usually dened on both the
conceptual level (textual/tabular descriptions accompanied with
graphics, most typically expressed as a UML class diagram, e.g. in
ISO 19115, 2003; ISO 19115, 2014) and the implementation level.
XML Schema (XSD) is a typical technology that is being used to
capture encoding rules. A schema denition on the implementation
level makes it possible to incorporate (semi)automatic validation
tools, like XML schema validation and Schematron validations
(Schematron, 2020).
3. Findability layer. Searching and ndability represent application
logic on top of the published metadata records. Catalogue services
make it possible to search for and discover relevant resources ac-
cording to given criteria. Examples in this direction could be: “Show
me all the datasets that provide measurements between 2017 and
2019 in Pilsen city by using trafc intensity detectors”.
4. Interoperability. The ability of systems to work with each other is
initiated, as the structure as well as catalogue APIs (Application
Programming Interfaces) are clearly dened and originate from an
(international) standard. Metadata may be transferred from one
system to another; related catalogues may be connected, etc.
Level 1: schema-based metadata with literal values bring chal-
lenges, similarly to any change of a paradigm. The following challenges
were identied:
1. Difcult to deploy. Metadata management based on schema-based
metadata with literal values usually requires specic metadata tools
and staff acquainted with their set up, customizations, and mainte-
nance. The required efforts are equal to the complexity of a given
structure/schema. Deployment can be relatively easy for structures/
schemas like Dublin Core, with up to 15 metadata elements in a at
structure (Dublin Core, 2020), but very complex for ISO
19115/19119, which includes hundreds of hierarchically organised
metadata elements (ISO 19115, 2003; ISO 19115, 2014). Note that
efforts with respect to ISO 19100 series metadata can vary consid-
erably, as most of their metadata elements are optional. An ISO
19100 metadata prole can contain dozens or hundreds of metadata
elements. Among other issues, ambiguities in Level 0 metadata are
dependent on the documentation of a code list granularity. Also, the
deployment of catalogue services is specic and requires trained
staff.
2. User-friendliness. More complex metadata structures/schemas are
difcult to understand for both metadata administrators and users.
Complex hierarchical structures may decrease the clarity of the in-
formation presented in the metadata.
3. Loose (meta)data bindings. Metadata require, in Level 1, specic
structures, tools and handling, which results in various (and
commonly isolated) life cycles of data and metadata.
4. Ambiguities. The provided character strings and/or code list values
are commonly non-intuitive, as they capture not easily interpretable
values such as ‘DTM’, ‘007’ or ‘NoiMesAboGro2mHei.’
3.1.3. Level 2: schema-based metadata with unique identiers
Level 2 is understood, in contrast to the previous two levels, as the
rst semantic-oriented level. Values are presented as identiers in
comparison to Level 1 to reduce ambiguities. The shift to Level 2 ad-
dresses the above-raised points as follows:
● Wrapper: remains the same as in Level 1. There are no changes
regarding the metadata wrapper (this is the most important change
in comparison to Level 0). Websites, databases, Web server re-
sponses, tables linked to other data etc. Are still being used in Level 2;
● Complexity and structure: where applicable, it could use a triple-
based (i.e. subject-predicate-object; W3C, 2014a) or even more
complex structure. For example, the relation between the “Coordi-
nate reference system” and “urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG:4326” (EPSG,
2019) is a typical unique identier used in geosciences metadata. A
user is then sure of what kind of coordinate system is meant. The
unique identier “urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG:4326” is used explicitly by
the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for the two-dimensional
expression of WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984). In Level 2,
unique identiers are re-used as much as possible. New unique
identiers can be created if existing ones are not available and/or not
applicable for the given purpose. However, although this ensures
uniqueness, it does not necessarily aid the association or combina-
tion of datasets unless the same unique identiers are used for the
same entities throughout, say, an organisation.
● Exchange format: This remains the same as in Level 1. The given
structure can still be exchanged in a table within an internal data-
base, through CSV, export table structures like XLS, XML, or RDF.
● Publication: This can remain the same as in Level 1, i.e. a broad
portfolio of cataloguing solutions is available in general, while the
given structure determines suitable publication tools. The benets of
the ndability layer (publication) appear when a cataloguing solu-
tion has an application logic that supports interpretations of unique
identiers. A user may then see the types and denitions of a value
provided as a unique identier instead of seeing the unique identier
itself.
We may identify the following differences on top of the modications
mentioned above. The semantic approach based on unique identiers
adds the “types and denitions of data”, a term which requires an
explanation so as not to be interpreted differently. The key-value pair
concept is addressed in the semantic web as follows:
●Keys that add the types and denitions of the names of things/rele-
vant concepts (such as noise, which can be dened according to the
altitude above the ground, and the methodology, etc. provided);
examples of Keys are ‘keywords’, ‘spatial extent’, ‘coordinate refer-
ence system’, ‘identication of an organisation’ etc.;
● Values that are provided together with their types and denitions
(such as units of measure); examples of Values are ‘gemetKeyword:
noise_measurement’, ‘vocab.gettytgn/7011723’ (for Pilsen), ‘urn:
ogc:def:crs:EPSG:4326’ (for WGS84), czechGov:Ministry_of_-
Transportation’. Values are unique identiers agreed and followed in
a domain/area of use.
Level 2 schema-based metadata with unique identiers have iden-
tical benets as described in Level 1, i.e.:
1. Strict, yet exible, structure.
2. Metadata publication.
3. Findability layer.
4. Interoperability.
Furthermore, Level 2 of metadata management brings one new
motivation for its use:
5. Clarity. The unique identier-based approach aims at explicit
designation. It is evident through a unique identier ‘vocab.get-
tytgn/1014734’ that the described “East York” is the one in Canada,
Ontario and not the one in the United States, Pennsylvania, or any
other “East York” around the world. The unique identier-based
approach is used for locations, keywords, identications of under-
lying data resources, and coordinate transformation systems, etc.
T. ˇ
Rezník et al.
The fth benet is described more in detail below.
In any context in which data exist, there are values that represent
certain concepts; human decisions, including policy-making, are then
(evidence-)based on interpretations of such values. Associating specic
values with specic concepts is one way of assigning types and deni-
tions to data made up of those values. For example, the following values
demonstrate the same concepts of trafc noise measurements: “day” and
“night”, “1” and “0”, “Lday” and “Ln”, or “L07-19” and “L20-06”. A
metadata registry captures the allowed values for some key as managed
by some registration authority. A mechanism by which the names of
“things” and the values assigned to them can be managed makes them
easier to be found and interpreted in various data sources.
As a result, the semantic approach prefers unique identiers over text
strings to populate a certain value. A value for noise could, for instance,
look like “urn:noiseAuthority:measuremements:registry:noisePeriod:
day” instead of “day”.
The added value for a user is receiving the types and denitions
relating to this value, e.g. that a noise measurement conducted during
the day means between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., at a height of 2 m above the
ground, while other bias noises were suppressed by further processing.
In particular, sensor networks including the IoT (Internet of Things;
Gubbi et al., 2013) benet from semantic metadata through concepts
like SOSA (Semantic Sensor Network Ontology; W3C, 2017a), a joint
effort of the World Wide Web Consortium and the Open Geospatial
Consortium.
Versioning in a unique identier provides an opportunity to capture
the evolutions of a resource. Versioning commonly includes a version
number, e.g. “1.3.0”, or a date of revision/update, most commonly in
line with ISO 8601-01 (2019), e.g. a date like “2021-11-10” or with a
timestamp like “2021-11-10 T12:00:07”. Moreover, EPSG (2019), for
example, assumes the latest version when the version number is missing.
For instance, the unique identier “urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG:4326” contains
“:” precisely for such a purpose. The greatest challenge in versioning lies
at the implementation level. All implementations using such unique
identiers with resource versioning must follow all the evolutions, a
non-trial task.
Linking a value to a corresponding registry, thesaurus, and/or
gazetteer can be achieved for any application. When moving to semantic
approaches, starting from Level 2, geosciences are being seamlessly in-
tegrated into the e-government concept: geo- and non-geo- resources are
handled equally and can be linked together.
The challenges identied at Level 2 of metadata management
remain the same as in Level 1 with one exception: ambiguities are no
longer a challenge, rather a benet. The following challenges from Level
1 remain valid also for Level 2 metadata management:
1. Difcult to deploy.
2. User-friendliness.
3. Loose (meta)data bindings.
3.1.4. Level 3: linked open (meta)data
The shift to Level 3 of metadata management includes the adoption
of referenced URIs. Open data available on the Web are linked to other
data through URIs. The shift to Level 3: linked open (meta)data ad-
dresses these points as follows:
● Wrapper: This is enhanced in comparison to previous levels. In
general, anything WWW-related can be re-used: from a Website or a
Web server response. However, some kinds of resources remain
inaccessible to metadata applications - for instance, even a Semantic
Web application cannot address the metadata of an e-mail.
● Complexity and structure: any (meta)data structure identied in
Levels 1 and 2 can be used as an underlying one (Dublin Core,
CSDGM, ISO, 19115, etc.). Level 3 is the most complex as it provides
URIs in a dereferenceable way. Unique identiers in Level 2, like
’gemetKeyword:noise_measurement’, are provided as URL links,
such as ’https://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/en/concept/5646’.
A user may click on the link and get to another source of information.
Such an approach enables relevant pieces of information to be con-
nected and improves the decision making process on top of the new
connections (links). Moreover, Level 3 allows users and applications
to identify equivalencies, hierarchies (parents, children, siblings),
broader terms (like measuring – GEMET, 2020a) or related terms
(like noise analysis – GEMET, 2020b), and homonyms (words/terms
which sound alike or are spelt alike but have different meanings) etc.
Another point of view lies in the structure of metadata element itself.
● The shift between different levels can be illustrated on the example of
a creator metadata element as follows:
○ At Level 0, only the implicitly provided name of the le owner at
the current time is available. This also means that a contributor’s
identication depends on the system used.
○ At Level 1, key-value pairs with literal values are provided. For
instance, a key creator has a value ‘John First’.
○ At Level 2, values are supported by unique identiers to identify
the corresponding resources uniquely. For instance, a key creator
has a value as the unique identier ‘JohnFirst003’. Such an
approach enables us to identify the right John First explicitly.
○ At Level 3, a collection of FOAF (Friend of a Friend; for further
details see FOAF (2014) objects is provided. For instance, the
(semantic) triple can be expressed as ‘dc:creator =“http://
myOrganisation.policy/staff/JohnFirst”’. Complexity should be
depicted in ontologies, as the object (“value”) http://myOrganisati
on.policy/staff/JohnFirst can be a predicate (“key”) to other ob-
jects (“values”), e.g. linking http://myOrganisation.policy/staff/
JohnFirst with information about him on a web page.
Such an example tends to illustrate the fact that statements on se-
mantic metadata approaches are not black or white, as semantic ap-
proaches are not ‘all or nothing’.
● Exchange format: three formats are dened as the default ones:
RDF/XML (W3C, 2014c), Turtle (W3C, 2014b), and JSON-LD (W3C,
2020a), as they are all capable of handling links to other information
resources and are “self-dening” in the sense of allowing a
consuming process to interpret the metadata without any additional
information. However, referenceable URIs may also be handled in
XML through XLink (W3C, 2010), as in <gmx:Anchor>tags in ISO
19139 (ISO/TS 19139, 2007; ISO/TS 19139-1, 2019) compliant
encoding.
● Publication: follows the structure(s) used and the exchange format
(s). For instance, CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive
Network) with proper extensions (GitHub, 2020) is used as a
wide-spread cataloguing solution. Linked open (meta)data also open
new publication possibilities for leading search engines. Such an
approach may attract more users than before. Moreover, such
attraction may appear in terms of user-friendliness, as depicted in
Fig. 4. Note that any search engine following Schema.org can be
re-used for such publication. The leading search engines mostly
require metadata to be embedded in Web pages using HTML +RDFa
(W3C, 2015b) or JSON-LD (W3C, 2020a) snippets. If metadata are
expressed in RDF, this could facilitate indexing, provided that they
are not available only separately, but embedded in HTML pages
following SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques. Interoper-
ability is not granted. Moreover, these rules are different for different
information resources. As an example, see the differences in recipes
(Fig. 4) and datasets (Fig. 5). When metadata are expressed using
Dublin Core (Dublin Core, 2020) and DCAT (W3C, 2020b), they can
be indexed without the need to convert them to Schema.org. More-
over, the Schema.org terms for datasets and catalogues are modelled
on DCAT, so the correspondence is pretty straightforward.
A successful publication in Level 3 also requires the following
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decisions:
○ which leading search engine(s) are desired,
○ which information resources are desired.
Search engines mostly omit or simplify the metadata of geo resources
(typically by avoiding spatial extent information) due to their speci-
city. According to Clarke (2012), semantic metadata can be used to
increase trafc from search engines, as such metadata can provide
search engines with more information about the content being searched.
For this reason, several of the leading search engines have begun
working together, via Schema.org (2020), on the development of stan-
dards that facilitate a greater level of metadata exposure. As a conse-
quence, the leading search engines provide the user with an answer that
best matches his/her search history, i.e. a user prole. To sum up, se-
mantic metadata are one of the ingredients of machine learning algo-
rithms - and this not only within the leading search engines.
There are dozens of kinds of Schema.org-based rich (meta)data
content supported by the leading search engines: from ‘article’ through
‘dataset’, ‘event’ or ‘recipe’ to ‘video’. In general, ‘dataset’-rich results
seem to be the most common way of describing geoscience resources.
However, ‘dataset’-rich results do not appear on the entry pages of some
leading search engines (Brickley et al., 2019). The primary advantage of
rich results is lost – a user-friendly visualisation that is common to
non-geo metadata as depicted in Fig. 4. Instead, geo metadata are pre-
sented without the benets of rich results, as depicted in Fig. 5.
The benets and challenges of Level 3, open linked (meta)data, are
described in greater detail in section 4 due to their complexity and
novelty.
4. The benets and challenges of open linked (meta)data
management and publication
The text in the following sections presents the benets of, and
challenges facing open linked (meta)data management and publication
in more detail.
Level 3 is a further shift in comparison to Level 2. The main benet of
Level 2 is clarity in the types and denitions of data. Level 3 uses,
contrary to Level 2, dereferenceable URIs that point to other relevant
resources. Thesauri, gazetteers and/or registries are used as primary
sources. For instance, the Level 2 unique identier ‘vocab.gettytgn/
1014734’ is modied for Level 3 as follows: “http://vocab.getty.
edu/page/tgn/1014734”. The linked open (meta)data approach in-
creases user-friendliness, as a user can click on a link and obtain the
information directly from its source. Moreover, the application logic of a
system is capable of employing improved processes that automatically
connect relevant pieces of information.
4.1. Benets
As noted at the beginning of section 3, Level 3 represents a revolution
with respect to both metadata management and publication. For this
reason, the benets, as well as challenges, relating to it will be described
in greater depth in comparison with the previous levels.
4.1.1. Openness
Open data is a paradigm that, in the last decade, has been empha-
sized more and more in two major communities: in research and in
public administrations. Regarding the latter, the open data paradigm
enables the re-use and creation of added value and evidence-based de-
cision making on top of already published data. Also, for this reason,
public administration bodies commonly desire to publish openly as
much data as is feasible. Such a situation leads, in some cases, to a heap
of data in which it is difcult for users to orient themselves. For example,
Fig. 6 shows an overwhelming number of results on available visual-
isations at the EU Open Data Portal (https://data.europa.eu/euodp/en
/visualisation-home), which, however, are not connected in a user-
friendly way. Such difculties from a user experience point of view
result in quite a low number of visitors to the EU Open Data Portal in
comparison to national geoportals.
4.1.2. Dissemination to the masses
The basic weakness of both open data portals and geoportals is the
fact that users need to know that they exist. Finding the right tool for
ndability may be an even more severe obstacle than searching within
the discovered tool. Geoportals are not commonly known to people
outside of the geo bubble, while open data portals are not commonly
known to people outside of the open data (e-government) bubble.
Level 3 (the linked open (meta)data approach) facilitates the user-
friendly publication of available (meta)data in leading search
Fig. 1. Numbers of papers available at the Web of Science concerning eleven phrases related to the scope of this paper. Note that the analysis of papers for the term
‘semantic web’ was not performed in this study as it would have been too demanding for the capacity of our team.
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engines via publication through Schema.org (see Fig. 7).
4.1.3. Describing only relevant aspects
An easy-to-use structure, especially when compared with the
complexity of standard geo metadata structures, is another feature and
benet of semantic (meta)data. Contemporary “traditional” metadata
standards, like CSDGM (The Content Standard for Digital Geospatial
Metadata; published by the Federal Geographic Data Committee – FGDC
– of the United Nations; FGDC, 1998) or ISO 19115 Geographic infor-
mation – Metadata (ISO 19115, 2003; ISO 19115, 2014), have very
complex structures including hundreds of metadata elements in several
hierarchical levels. In these, a metadata creator/administrator is also
pushed to document mandatory metadata elements that are 1) not
needed and 2) do not describe a resource appropriately according to
his/her scope of applications. Such an impulse often results in
non-equivalent descriptions of identical or similar concepts. Semantic
approaches enable only those descriptions that are relevant according to
the scope of the metadata application to be documented. This benet
may easily become a disadvantage as there is no minimal set of
describing metadata elements, as in the case of the core metadata ele-
ments in ISO 19115 or a legally required set of elements in INSPIRE.
4.1.4. Links within/between information resources
Semantic approaches by default aim at linking open data. The added
value lies, among other advantages, in clearly linking relevant pieces of
information, such as in an example of visualisations of trafc measure-
ments (see Fig. 8). When supporting semantics, we may visualise the
most relevant resources as the primary ones and leave others to be
shown as links, if more information is desired. Semantic approaches
assist in estimations of the most relevant resources. For instance, a user
is searching for a “river”; however, the metadata contains the term
“stream”. A catalogue service will provide datasets to a user for both
terms, i.e. “river” as well as “stream”, thanks to an associated thesaurus
that has indicated the terms “river” and “stream” as synonyms.
Fig. 2. Analysis of review papers relevant to the scope of open linked metadata at the Web of Science.
Fig. 3. Analysis of papers relevant to the scope of open linked metadata concerning their applicability in geosciences.
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4.1.5. Revoke the (articial) boundary between data and metadata
Level 0 and Level 3 have a common aspect: they both apply the same
rules to data as well as metadata. Level 3 revokes an articial boundary
that is the cost of the paradigm used in Levels 1 and 2. Level 3, open
linked (meta)data, uses the triple-based construction for data and met-
adata. Data and metadata follow a common life cycle. Metadata
accompany data where desired and at several levels, such as a series of
datasets, a single dataset, dataset visualisation, the e-shop offering the
dataset, the layers of a dataset, the object type as part of a layer, and
object instance, etc. Findability, as well as other processes, may be
designed in a new, more complex way.
4.2. Challenges
The following challenges will be, similarly to benets, described in
more depth:
4.2.1. Updating mechanisms
Updates need to be set, the most common in geosciences through ETL
(Extract, Transform, Load) mechanisms. The updating mechanisms are
mostly automatic; however, a certain amount of manual input is usually
needed, which inuences the regular costs invested into metadata
solutions.
4.2.2. Lack of concepts
The LOD (Linked Open Data) cloud (McCrae, 2020a) provides an
excellent basis for (meta)data integration with relevant
semantically-rich content. The LOD cloud is poorly balanced when
speaking about different scientic domains as well as concepts in a
scientic domain. The LOD cloud (Fig. 9) in November 2021 contained
Fig. 4. Demonstration of Schema.org-based rich results as a user-friendly means of linked open (meta)data publication, as appearing in search engines (images
adopted from https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/triple-chocolate-layer-cake/and https://ifoodreal.com/healthy-chocolate-cake/, modied).
Fig. 5. Demonstration of a Schema.org-based “rich result” of a geo-domain dataset, as appearing in search engines (texts adopted from https://researchdata.edu.au/,
https://data.gov.au/and https://www.ga.gov.au, modied).
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1301 datasets with 16,283 links.
Geosciences, identied in the LOD cloud as a separate domain,
contributed 44 datasets; see also Fig. 10. It should be noted that geo-
sciences are mentioned in the LOD cloud as ‘geography’. For example, in
reality, the ‘geography’ domain in the LOD cloud contains, among
others, the Geological Survey of Austria (GBA) – Thesaurus. Therefore,
the authors in this paper prefer the term ’geosciences’ when speaking
about the ‘geography’ domain in the LOD cloud. The major geoscience
databases within the LOD cloud are the DBpedia (a semantic equivalent
of Wikipedia), LinkedGeoData (including a semantic version of Open-
StreetMap) and GeoNames (as the primary source for geocoding, with
25 million geographical names and 150 million web service requests per
Fig. 6. Results brought to a user when searching for visualisations at the EU Open Data Portal (adopted from: https://data.europa.eu/euodp/en/visualisation-home).
Fig. 7. Demonstration of Schema.org-based metadata: primarily, answers are presented to users directly instead of metadata behind the answers (although metadata
were used) (map adopted from https://www.openstreetmap.org/, modied).
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Fig. 8. Visualisation of open data in a structured and linked way: PoliVisu prototype on Trafc intensity detectors in Pilsen (development inspired by https://data.
technologiestiftung-berlin.de/en and http://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu).
Fig. 9. All the databases within the LOD cloud and their linkages. Adopted from: https://lod-cloud.net.
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day). As depicted in Fig. 10, these three databases are the main hubs, as
all the remaining semantic databases in geosciences are linked to them.
Regarding their trajectory, geosciences are growing faster than the
LOD cloud in general. From another point of view, the geosciences are
the sixth most represented within the LOD cloud (after life sciences,
government, linguistics, publications and social networking). Another
perspective is philosophical: “What is and what is not related to geo-
sciences?” For instance, OECD Linked Data (McCrae, 2020b) contains
geolocated information; however, it is not classied within the LOD
cloud as “geo”. Therefore, the inclusion of only 44 linked geo datasets in
the LOD cloud is misleading.
4.2.3. Weak support in geosciences
This situation seems to be a result of the rigidness of the geo com-
munity. With the exception of a pioneers, we can see a lack of best
practice (Hu et al., 2015; Di et al., 2009; Ho et al., 2011; Narock and Fox,
2012; Kalantari et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2014; Laa et al., 2016;
McGee et al., 2017; Da Silva et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2013; Maue et al.,
2012; Neumaier et al., 2018). The geo community, having reached a
peak with respect to the use of non-semantic metadata approaches (i.e.
Levels 1 and 2), still, as a whole, hesitates whether or not to adopt se-
mantic metadata approaches. It seems that the identied challenges,
together with a lack of application support, prevent the geosciences
community from taking signicant steps towards using semantic meta-
data. Findability mechanisms present the most visible obstacle. Geo-
portals have not evolved to comply with publication techniques (the
so-called SEO techniques) used by all Web developers to ensure that a
Web site is indexed by search engines. These not only include embed-
ding metadata in Web pages - via HTML +RDFa and/or JSON-LD
snippets, but also - and more importantly - the use of basic Web publi-
cation best practices (such as having a URL for each page to be indexed).
Nevertheless, some catalogue platforms are moving in this direction,
such as GeoNetwork (2020). The leading search engines have adopted
semantic web principles while geo catalogues mostly remain according
to how such catalogues were designed and built ten years ago, even
though semantic approaches were successfully tested within a geo
catalogue as early as in 2006 (HarmonISA, 2020). A shift to the devel-
opment of semantic applications will also mean a shift on the part of the
geo community to the employment of semantic-based use cases (and
vice-versa).
4.2.4. Invested efforts
Efforts are needed when shifting from one level to another, no matter
how great or small the shift. The most expensive are revolutions; i.e.
shifts from Level 0 to Level 1 and from Level 2 to Level 3. The geo
community has made the shifts to Levels 1 and 2 over the last two de-
cades. However, the will to nance another revolution in terms of
metadata management and publication seems to be low. Creation and
maintenance costs on the one hand and low benets, especially when
the scope of application is not sufciently specied enough, on the other
hand are the major economic disadvantages. See section 6 for further
discussion.
4.2.5. Formalisation
Two extreme situations could be identied:
●Limited loose semantics (typical for “linked data”) makes imple-
mentation easier and more re-useable.
Fig. 10. The selection of geosciences within the LOD cloud. Adopted from: https://lod-cloud.net.
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● Strong formalised semantics allow for powerful reasoning but make
it hard to combine information from different sources.
The occurrence of both situations simultaneously is unlikely, at least
not with formalisms like OWL (Web Ontology Language), which are
based on classical logic (Augusto, 2019), or a more precise descriptive
logic (Horrocks et al., 2003; Horrocks, 2005). As a result, a successful
semantic web application is either powerful, but limited in scope and
hard to integrate with other systems, or it is “dumb” but easy to integrate
and use. It is therefore necessary to decide which type of success is
desired.
4.2.6. Performance
As far as the authors are aware, the most complex semantically
interlinked geodatabase has been developed within the FOODIE and
DataBio projects (Reznik et al., 2017): more than 700 million triples
were maintained in the Virtuoso triple store, with responses within
seconds when using the Pozna´
n Supercomputing and Networking Centre
(in Poland). Nevertheless, the performance of a semantic-based nd-
ability service becomes worse in cases of:
● the presence of low-end hardware (on the part of the server),
● the inputting of complex queries (usually dozens or more conditions
in one query) or
● the existence of very strong formalisation (especially the number of
linkages and the capability of related stores to respond under stress
conditions).
5. Open linked (meta)data: incremental versus an “all in one go”
strategy
As noted earlier, open linked (meta)data is not an ‘all or nothing’
concept. Two major approaches are feasible: incremental implementa-
tion on the one hand and “all in one go” implementation on the other.
As stated in section 3, Level 3 open linked (meta)data approaches are
considered as another revolution in terms of (meta)data management
and publication. Open-linked (meta)data are often understood as a
completely new paradigm that requires abandoning the existing
approach. This section (5) tries to summarize the advantages of incre-
mental implementation as a revolution divided into several smaller
steps, on the one hand, and of a complete revolution, i.e., changing
everything at once, on the other.
Both revolutionary approaches are valid; both have advantages and
disadvantages. The steps identied in Fig. 11 need to be considered:
The strengths and weaknesses of each approach are summarised in
Table 8.
6. Discussion
The lack of best practices in semantic approaches in geosciences
sometimes seems to have a paralysing effect on their wider adoption
(and vice versa). This discussion is intended as a guide to selecting the
most appropriate approach for an organisation at a particular point in
time, taking account of the type of content, the organisation’s objectives,
the extent of openness and connectivity with other data, and the re-
sources and skills available.
6.1. Suitability for a semantic approach
6.1.1. How suitable is the resource for this approach?
As also discussed in section 4, semantic approaches are applicable
only for some kinds of resources. For instance, e-mails cannot be (at least
so far) linked with/to any other related concept in existing semantic
approaches. Video, audio and images can be linked only partially (Isaac
and Haslhofer, 2013; Sikos, 2017). The basic geo resources like datasets,
Fig. 11. Steps identied for ‘incremental implementation’ as well as for the “all in one go” approach.
Table 8
Strengths and weaknesses of incremental implementation versus “all in one go”
approaches.
Incremental implementation All in one go
Strengths ⋅ preservation of existing
infrastructure
⋅ open linked (meta)data
“only” in a publication data
store
⋅ existing processes remain
unchanged
⋅ linkages between all the dened
data resources
⋅ one (new) infrastructure for data
and metadata
⋅ metadata and data life cycles are
identical
Weaknesses ⋅ linkages only between some
data resources
⋅ metadata and data life cycles
remain different
⋅ difcult updating
mechanisms
⋅ training needed to set up and
maintain the combined
infrastructure
⋅ costs for changing the
infrastructure
⋅ training needed to set up and
maintain the combined
infrastructure
⋅ missing best practices
⋅ division of publicly unavailable
(meta)data
⋅ linkage to historical data (before
shifting to the linked open (meta)
data approach)
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web services, (map) compositions, and/or applications could follow the
best practices dened within the OGC document on GeoDCAT-AP (Raes
et al., 2019). Even such a portfolio of resources is not commonly
described by semantic approaches in geosciences. Linking to relevant
concepts is both the basic idea and the greatest benet of semantic ap-
proaches. Higher impact would be achieved in cases when other kinds of
resources are supported within implementations.
6.1.2. How much will the (meta)data be shared, now or in the future?
Semantic approaches are based on linking concepts, and one of the
main objectives has been to make it easier both to share data in a
meaningful way and to use data from other sources, sometimes by
combining them with data already held. Therefore, the greater the
expectation that data will be shared, the greater the realisable value of a
semantic approach.
Many semantic approaches are associated with data openness goals.
However, this does not mean that all the metadata need to be publicly
available now, or in the future. It would be possible to design a semantic
approach with a view to a future sharing of the organisation’s data and
with the possibility of using data from other sources more easily straight
away. It would also be possible to publish some parts of the metadata but
not other parts, with a clear and managed division between publicly
available metadata and condential metadata.
6.1.3. How much can existing semantic resources be used?
The more that semantic concepts and ontologies relevant to your
data have already been developed, the easier the application of a se-
mantic approach, and the greater the potential benets of linking with
other data. Over the last ten years, signicant progress has been made in
developing useful standard resources. Some key resources are.
● The LOD cloud: as presented in section 4.
● Thesauri (that may be a part of the LOD cloud)
○ domain-related thesauri like GEMET, AGROVOC, USGS Thesaurus,
…
○ gazetteers, i.e. thesauri with geolocated concepts, like:
■ Getty Thesaurus of Geographical Names (TGN),
■ GeoNet Name Server (GNS),
■ The World Gazetteer,
■ GeoNames (the most used one),
○registries that provide types and denitions typically for the cod-
ing of list values, such as the INSPIRE registries (INSPIRE, 2020) or
the EPSG registry.
○ other resources relevant to the scope of a (metadata) application.
It is not essential that all necessary concepts have been developed.
There are cases in which equivalent concepts do not (yet) exist or are not
applicable and/or it is not desirable/could be misleading to link to
existing concepts. In such cases, a (meta)data creator/administrator has
an opportunity to dene an ontology as well as to set up URIs. However,
if no concepts are linked, many of the benets of a semantic approach
are lost.
6.2. What benets would be gained from a semantic approach?
6.2.1. How important is precision and uniqueness in the metadata?
Traditional metadata management provides key-value pairs that
already aim at adding types and denitions of data. However, these
types and denitions of data may be:
● known only to some community;
● very limited, as the key-value pair concept does not allow more
complex explanations.
The benets of semantic approaches include explicit types and def-
initions of data for the provided (meta)data, including explicit position:
for instance, when “Dublin” is indicated as a place of origin, semantic
metadata is able to indicate whether it is “Dublin – the capital of
Ireland”, “Dublin – a city in Ohio, the United States of America”, or some
other.
6.2.2. How important is it that public search engines can nd your content?
In summary, full-text based search, as provided by the leading search
(Web) engines, brings vast amounts of users from various domains. Full-
text search engines have several times higher numbers of users than the
most visited geoportal on the planet. Such users are eager to discover
also geodata. It is important to emphasise that not all users are willing to
receive the answer in the form of a map. Nevertheless, the question is
often a location-based one, such as “What noise from trafc do I
encounter when walking from my home to my work?” (Kraak and
Brown, 2000).
Two related levels can be identied:
● If you are capable of delivering a direct answer instead of metadata,
do it.
● Only if you cannot directly provide an answer, present the user with
metadata on a resource where (s)he can nd the searched
information.
For instance, a user is searching for “2 +2”; (s)he immediately re-
ceives an answer. The same applies when searching for a location-based
answer like “noise map Flanders”. A user receives a preview of a
collection of maps instead of textual metadata (Schema.org, 2020).
6.2.3. How important is it for your metadata to be integrated with sensor
networks?
The integration of (meta)data within and beyond sensor networks
brings new perspectives as well as added value (Di et al., 2009;
Tagliolato et al., 2019). Complex queries in semantic approaches may
become even more complex as they can also address the original (sensor)
measurements. The joint Open Geospatial Consortium’s and World Wide
Web Consortium’s recommendation called the Sensor Network
Ontology (W3C, 2017a) addresses this step in detail. Such a document
also discusses the differences between so-called live and static datasets.
6.3. What is the ability to deliver a semantic approach?
6.3.1. What skills are available?
Human resources skilled in metadata management are also needed
for semantic approaches. However, it may not be sufcient to under-
stand a metadata standard, dene a metadata prole, develop a tem-
plate for metadata encoding, publish a Web service, or dene validation
mechanisms. The following changes in comparison to “traditional”
metadata approaches may be identied:
1. Analysis of user requirements (as “traditionally” this step is omitted
within geosciences at the metadata level (Ho et al., 2011; Laa et al.,
2016; Maue et al., 2012; Neumaier et al., 2018),
2. Denition of high-level business process workows including a de-
cision on the re-use of the existing ontology versus developing a new
one(s) (Kokla and Guilbert, 2020),
3. Determination of whether the required (meta)data will also be of a
sensitive nature and require any special handling,
4. Determination of whether (meta)data will also be ndable by leading
search engines that follow Schema.org,
5. Decision about semantic-ready storage and its implementation
(typically, a triple/quadruple store in comparison to “traditional”
relational database),
6. Decision about exchange formats and their implementation,
7. The setting up of publication mechanisms (typically, an open API
supporting SPARQL queries),
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Rezník et al.
8. Denition and development of quality assurance and (or) quality
control measures (especially to verify whether the underlying, i.e.
interlinked, concepts are still reachable).
6.3.2. To what extent would you need to dene your own concepts
concerning semantic web denitions?
Semantic approaches could be used even when there are no relevant
publicly available concepts for integration. However, in such a case, the
efforts invested into semantic approaches will be considerably higher, as
the denition of one’s own concepts is not a trivial task (Corcho et al.,
2003). This means that a registry/thesaurus/OWL ontology or any
similar entity needs to be created within your organisation. Additional
requirements arise both in terms of skills and nancial resources.
6.3.3. How much funding is available?
In general, semantic approaches are initially costlier to implement in
comparison to “traditional” metadata approaches; however, semantic
approaches may give greater benets, allowing other costs to be avoided
over the data lifecycle. The highest cost is likely to be human resources
with the necessary semantic design and implementation skills - either
within the organisation (including the costs of developing those skills if
necessary) or by contracting temporary specialist skills.
6.3.4. Suitability of existing IT infrastructure and services?
The implementation of semantic (meta)data may involve building
interfaces and ensuring compatibility with the existing IT corporate
infrastructure. If organisation policies permit, it may be possible - and, in
the short term, desirable - to use cloud services to host the semantic
element in order to avoid costs and delays in implementing semantic
software in the corporate IT infrastructure.
6.4. Reaching a decision on the most suitable approach
The decision on which approach to adopt is not just technical. Still, it
should consider issues of business strategy, manageability, costs of
scarce technical and non-technical resources and the benets case for
the organisation. It will need to look not just at the short-term and
pragmatic issues but also at the longer-term benets of a semantic
approach. It will often be worth preparing a Business Case for the
proposed approach so that there is a clear and sustainable basis for
the formal decision.
The choice among the options will depend on the circumstances of
individual organisations, but broadly four approaches are possible.
● Where there are clear and substantial benets of a semantic
approach, particularly in making the organisation’s data more pub-
licly available and ndable, and there is a substantial body of
existing semantic data to which to link, organisations should seri-
ously consider committing the necessary nancial and human re-
sources to a fully semantic approach.
● Where the immediate benets are less clear, but there is nevertheless
a vast amount of data involved, the advantages of precise and unique
metadata may nevertheless justify a fully semantic approach.
● Where the organisation is not yet sure about the strength of the
benets case, it might choose in the short-term to adopt the semi-
semantic approach of using unique semantic identiers in its
(meta)data. This would allow some of the benets of unique data to
be realised and may also be a suitable way of developing the orga-
nisation’s skills for fuller semantic approaches at a later stage. This
could be particularly attractive where the organisation is in a posi-
tion to develop ontologies that other stakeholders could use.
● Where the organisation’s data is not suitable for a semantic approach
or is unlikely to be shared with others, then traditional meta-data
approaches may be adequate. However, to enable linking of data
within the organisation itself, there may still be an advantage in
using URIs to describe key entities uniquely and commonly across
different departments of the organisation.
7. Conclusions
The presented paper provides comprehensive reference material for
adopting the principles of linked open (meta)data. Three major advan-
tages can be dened for adopting such semantic-based (meta)data
approaches:
● clear types and denitions of data used for decision making,
● exibility of metadata descriptions,
● sharing relevant information with the broad audience of Schema.org-
based search engines users.
The rst point aims at better decisions, as data in semantic ap-
proaches are linked to explicit evidence on the procedures used, units of
measures, and the quality of the data (measurements) etc. Benets of the
rst point can appear with even meagre investments, as linking data can
be handled through URIs in existing (geo) solutions. A (dereferenceable)
URI provides clearer information on types and denitions as well as
further relevant information in comparison to the “traditional” main-
tenance of (free text) character strings in metadata.
The second point aims at the exibility of metadata descriptions.
Metadata creators/administrators are no longer pushed to provide
mandatory metadata elements according to some complex (interna-
tional) standard. Instead, only relevant (meta)data are linked together
according to the needs of an application. This also means that metadata
may be easily provided also in cases not supported by an (international)
metadata standard. For instance, ISO 19115 does not support a
description of the data structure in the metadata. In contrast, semantic
approaches enable metadata to be linked to feature types, attribute
types, and/or any similar structure of the described dataset. Semantic
approaches enable the removal of the articial boundary between data
and metadata that has been present within geosciences for more than
three decades.
Sharing relevant information with the broad audience of Schema.
org-based search engines users allows, if desired, to step outside geo
and open data bubbles. It also addresses a common challenge that has, so
far, been only partially addressed within geo/open data communities.
That is, discovering a proper tool for nding the data seems to be in
several cases even more complicated than discovering the data in that a
tool. Such a step requires knowledge as well as investments in time and
effort. Metadata can be advertised in an attractive user-friendly way in
leading search engines.
Four levels of metadata management and publication were identied
and described:
●‘Level 0: default unstructured metadata’, which is generated auto-
matically/implicitly within many typical IT systems.
● ‘Level 1: schema-based metadata with literal values’, which is a
‘revolution’ where the semantics of these values is ambiguous (clear
usually only within a domain and/or interest group).
● ‘Level 2: schema-based metadata with unique identiers’, which is
an evolution of Level 1 with an emphasis on the use of unique
identiers that are added to literal values whenever applicable, these
providing explicit identication of reliable data resources.
● ‘Level 3: linked open (meta)data’, which provides explicit linkage
(and types plus denitions) between reliable data resources. More-
over, Level 3 facilitates the indexing of (meta)data by leading search
engines.
The decision on which level to adopt is not just technical. Still, it will
need to consider issues of business strategy, manageability, opportunity
costs of scarce technical and non-technical resources, and the benets
case for the organisation. It will need to look not just at short-term and
T. ˇ
Rezník et al.
pragmatic issues but also at the longer-term benets of a semantic
approach. It will often be worth preparing a Business Case for the pro-
posed approach so that there is a clear and sustainable basis for the
formal decision. In any case, two approaches are feasible: incremental
implementations as a revolution divided into several smaller steps on
the one hand, and complete revolution, i.e. ‘all in one go’ implementa-
tion on the other hand.
The benets of semantic approaches increase with the number of
involved stakeholders. To date, the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud
contains 1301 datasets with 16,283 links. Geosciences are the sixth
most-represented component within the LOD cloud (after life sciences,
government, linguistics, publications, and social networking) with 44
datasets. However, the real number of linked geo datasets seems to be
higher. For instance, OECD Linked Data contains geolocated informa-
tion, which is classied as “government” and not assigned to
geosciences.
Future work will focus on alignment of the developed guidelines
with existing best practices for geo (meta)data. Such work remains a
part of the activity of the Metadata Working Group of the Open Geo-
spatial Consortium (OGC). Revisions and amendments to the OGC
GeoDCAT-AP with respect to the outcomes of this paper are one of the
anticipated results.
Funding sources
This research was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 769608
titled Policy Development based on Advanced Geospatial Data Analytics
and Visualisation (PoliVisu) and by the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 818346
called “Sino-EU Soil Observatory for intelligent Land Use Management”
(SIEUSOIL).
Author contributions
Tom´
aˇ
s ˇ
Rezník conducted the study, wrote the text, prepared gur-
es&tables and revised the text. Lieven Raes conducted the study, wrote
the text and revised the text. Andrew Stott conducted the study, wrote
the text and revised the text. Bart De Lathouwer wrote and revised the
text. Andrea Perego wrote and revised the text. Karel Charv´
at revised the
text. ˇ
Stˇ
ep´
an Kafka conducted the study.
Computer code availability
No specic software/script is related to the presented work.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing nancial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to inuence
the work reported in this paper.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.cageo.2022.105194.
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