The evolution of a geoscience standard: An instructive tale of science keyword development and adoption

Mark A. Parsons; Ruth Duerr; Øystein Godøy

doi:10.1016/j.gsf.2022.101400

Volume 14 Issue 5

Jul. 2023

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Mark A. Parsons, Ruth Duerr, Øystein Godøy. The evolution of a geoscience standard: An instructive tale of science keyword development and adoption[J]. Geoscience Frontiers, 2023, 14(5): 101400. doi: 10.1016/j.gsf.2022.101400

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Mark A. Parsons, Ruth Duerr, Øystein Godøy. The evolution of a geoscience standard: An instructive tale of science keyword development and adoption[J]. Geoscience Frontiers, 2023, 14(5): 101400. doi: 10.1016/j.gsf.2022.101400

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The evolution of a geoscience standard: An instructive tale of science keyword development and adoption

doi: 10.1016/j.gsf.2022.101400

a.
University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama, USA
b.
Ronin Institute, Broomfield, CO, USA
c.
Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Oslo, Norway

More Information

Corresponding author: E-mail address: map0046@uah.edu (M.A. Parsons)
Received Date: 2022-01-08
Accepted Date: 2022-04-14
Rev Recd Date: 2022-03-25

Available Online: 2022-04-19

Publish Date: 2023-09-01

Abstract

Abstract

In 1987, NASA sponsored an international workshop that inspired the Directory Interchange Format or DIF – a metadata format to enable "catalog interoperability". The DIF formed the basis of the International Directory Network (IDN) and the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) and included a set of science keywords. The primary intent was to catalog NASA Earth science and related data, but the keywords have been implemented in many different systems and adopted in varying ways by many different organizations around the world. This review provides an ethnographic examination of how the keywords have evolved and been managed and how they have been adopted over the last 35 years. It illustrates how semantic approaches have evolved over time and provides insights on how standards and associated processes can be sustained and adaptable. Ongoing institutional commitment is essential, but so is transparency and technical flexibility. Understanding and empowering the different roles involved in standards creation, maintenance, and use of standards as well as the services that standards enable is also critical. It is apparent that semantic representations need to be mindful of different contexts and carefully define verbs as well as nouns and categories. Understanding and representing relationships is central to interdisciplinary interoperability.
- Data management,
- Standards,
- Digital earth,
- Semantic web,
- Information science

CRediT authorship contribution statement
Mark A. Parsons: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Ruth Duerr: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. Øystein Godøy: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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References(24)

References

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