GIS Metadata and Documentation: GIS Vector Data Theory (15)

Summary

In this insightful video by GeoMindz.com, the importance of metadata in GIS vector data management is explored thoroughly. Metadata, which is essentially data about data, describes various aspects of a dataset including its creation, scale, lineage, and accuracy, among others. The session warns about the consequences of neglecting metadata creation, emphasizing that without it, the reusability and integrity of data are compromised. Despite the reluctance to engage in metadata documentation due to its time-consuming nature, the video advocates for habitual metadata creation using existing standards to ensure long-term data usability and compliance with organizational and national standards.

Highlights

• Metadata is described as data about data, critical for defining datasets' origins and usability. 📚
• Neglecting metadata creation often leads to wasted resources and integrity issues. 🚫
• Organizational and national standards play a crucial role in metadata documentation practices. 📜
• Loose metadata standards could potentially lead to better compliance due to lesser complexity. 🤔
• GIS analysts are encouraged to develop the habit of thorough metadata creation. 📝

Key Takeaways

• Metadata is crucial for understanding and using GIS data effectively. 📊
• Creating comprehensive metadata saves time and prevents data integrity issues. ⏰
• Different standards exist for metadata, impacting its creation and usage. 🌐
• Relaxed metadata standards might encourage more data documentation. 🧐
• GIS analysts must adhere to organizational metadata standards routinely. 🛠

Overview

Metadata, often referred to as data about data, plays a pivotal role in the realm of GIS and vector data management. It encompasses information like the dataset's creator, scale, and accuracy. This aids in verifying the integrity and usability of the dataset, and neglecting it can lead to severe mismanagement and misuse of data. Many GIS professionals might overlook the importance of metadata, but this video stresses its significance in ensuring data integrity and reliability for both personal and institutional projects.

Metadata isn't just an optional addition to data management; rather, it's a foundational element that guides data usability and compliance. While creating metadata can be laborious, its role in maintaining the dataset's integrity from the moment of creation to any future utilization is crucial. This video's emphasis on habitual metadata creation ensures that GIS professionals can efficiently manage and share their data, preventing the need for resource-intensive recreations of datasets.

The video highlights a fascinating paradox: strictly enforced metadata standards might actually deter thorough documentation due to their complexity, whereas more flexible standards might encourage comprehensive data coverage. The responsibility falls on GIS analysts to discern and adapt to the standards applicable to their work environments, ensuring they're consistently met. This is fundamental to advancing both personal projects and organizational goals within the vast field of GIS.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Metadata and Its Importance The chapter discusses the importance of metadata and metadata standards. Metadata, which means 'data about data,' describes various aspects of a dataset such as its purpose, creation details, and suitable scales for analysis.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Details Included in Metadata The chapter discusses the creation of data lineages, exploring whether datasets are originally created or derived from existing ones. It delves into aspects such as expected accuracy levels, the meanings behind fields in attribute tables, and responsibility for datasets.
• 01:00 - 01:30: The Necessity of Creating Comprehensive Metadata The chapter emphasizes the importance of creating comprehensive metadata for datasets. It highlights that metadata should include not only basic information like when a dataset was last updated but also a wider range of details. The chapter aims to convey that knowledge about metadata is crucial when working on any project, particularly scientific ones. Often, individuals overlook the significance of metadata until it's too late.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Consequences of Incomplete Metadata The chapter titled 'Consequences of Incomplete Metadata' discusses the importance of comprehensive metadata in data sets. It highlights that when someone downloads a data set from the internet lacking metadata, they realize its importance since the absence of metadata may render the data set unusable. The chapter emphasizes the habit of creating comprehensive metadata to provide necessary information for future users. However, it acknowledges that metadata entry is time-consuming, which often leads to incomplete metadata being provided.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Established Standards for GIS Metadata The chapter highlights the essential role of metadata in ensuring the reusability and integrity of Geographic Information System (GIS) data. Without proper documentation and metadata, the data's integrity is compromised, making it difficult to use reliably in future projects. The absence of metadata can lead to immediate and longer-term issues in data application and integrity verification. The chapter underscores that comprehensive documentation is crucial for maintaining data credibility and usability.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Challenges in Metadata Creation The chapter discusses the challenges associated with creating metadata. It highlights how easy it is to forget important aspects of a data set shortly after its creation. Even the original creators may not remember specifics weeks or days later. The solution is to document everything in metadata, which ensures the information is accessible and understandable for both the creator and others in the future.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Shapefile Metadata and XML Data Standard The chapter emphasizes the importance of properly documenting your data by creating comprehensive metadata. It warns against the common misconception that not documenting saves time, explaining that it actually leads to wasted time and resources in the future. Proper documentation is crucial for recalling the conditions under which the data was created, ensuring it can be reused, and preventing the need to recreate entire data sets. It advocates for adopting good documentation practices from the start to maintain data usability and efficiency.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Changes in ArcGIS Metadata Standards In this chapter, the importance of documenting GIS data through metadata is emphasized. It is stated as a beneficial habit that brings significant advantages in the medium to long term, and sometimes even in the short term. There are standardized metadata formats used by various organizations, and producing metadata according to these standards is often a job requirement for every dataset in a project.
• 07:00 - 08:00: Responsibilities of GIS Analysts in Metadata Creation The chapter discusses the conflict inherent in the creation of metadata for GIS datasets. While there is a universal demand for extensive and well-documented datasets, the actual creation of comprehensive metadata is often avoided because it is time-consuming and labor-intensive. The more robust and comprehensive the required metadata standards, the less appealing it becomes for individuals to spend time creating it.

GIS Metadata and Documentation: GIS Vector Data Theory (15) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I would like to take a few minutes in this video to talk about the importance of metadata and metadata standards I've mentioned metadata briefly in other videos but to recap metadata is data about data metadata describes what a particular dataset is who created it at what scale it was created at what scale it's appropriate for analysis how it was
• 00:30 - 01:00 created the lineage of the data meaning whether or not the particular dataset had been created or derived from other datasets which may themselves may have been created or derived from still other datasets datasets of what the accuracy level can be expected for the data set what do all of the fields in the attribute table actually mean what person or what organization is responsible for the data set when the
• 01:00 - 01:30 dataset was last updated and when you might expect for it to be updated again metadata can also contain much more information than just what I've listed here but what you should be able to tell from this list is that it's incredibly important for you to know all of this information about a data set whenever you're working on a project especially if you're working on a scientific project many people don't realize how important the data metadata is until
• 01:30 - 02:00 they need to know something about a particular data set that they've downloaded from the internet and realize there's no metadata to be found whatsoever then you realize how important it is and you may not be able to use a data set because you don't have information about it that you need so you should get into the habit of creating comprehensive metadata for the data sets that you create so that other people will have this information when they use your data unfortunately because creating and entering metadata takes time people
• 02:00 - 02:30 often neglect to create metadata and this severely in the medium to long term and often really in the very short-term inhibits the reusability of the data and prevents you from having any integrity with the data the data must be documented in order to have integrity for other projects and if it's not documented then the data just doesn't have integrity and when you don't have this documentation you don't have the metadata this results
• 02:30 - 03:00 in a huge wasting of time and resources it's very easy to forget all of the particulars about a data set even that you yourself created even a couple of weeks and sometimes a couple of days later I'm I know that I will forget all kinds of things about the data set that I create and if you write them down if you document them then you don't have to remember them because they're there they're documented in the metadata you can always access them look them up and then also everyone else can
• 03:00 - 03:30 as well so if you think that you're saving time by not properly documenting your data not properly creating metadata you're really not you're going to end up wasting a huge amount of time and resources while you try to remember what you created what conditions you created it under and then that data just isn't going to be able to be reused and you're going to have to recreate whole data sets so please from the very beginning
• 03:30 - 04:00 of your project to get into the habit of documenting your data it is a habit that will pay off a hundredfold or more in the in the medium to long term and sometimes that said even the short term there are established standards for GIS metadata that different organizations use and so it's often a job requirement to produce metadata for every data set created for a project that adheres to the metadata standards that your organization uses there are also
• 04:00 - 04:30 national standards that we could get into but I think are probably best left for a dedicated lesson however the conflict inherent and metadata always seems to be that although everybody wants extensive metadata extensive well documented datasets no one wants to spend time too create it that's the problem it takes time and the more robust and comprehensive the metadata standards are that you're having to adhere to the less
• 04:30 - 05:00 likely or at least that are available to you the less likely that people are to actually produce that metadata so you come up with this great and robust metadata standard and apply it to your organization and then everybody looks at all of this metadata of stuff that they need to fill out all these forms and then it doesn't seem to get done and so conversely it seems like the more relaxed the metadata standard is the more willing people seem to be to provide information because it's less
• 05:00 - 05:30 structured and less robust so we have a paradox here paradoxically it sometimes seems that the looser metadata standards are it may actually encourage people to provide more information about a data set because they can just go in and create or or write in what they want to say very easily whereas if you have very very strict metadata standards they may not even go in and create it even though they should so we have those two
• 05:30 - 06:00 conflicting that we have a conflict within metadata as we already mentioned with regard to the anatomy of the shapefile the shapefile format uses XML data standard the XML data standard to record all of the information all of the metadata about a shapefile and with a recent version of ArcGIS people were actually surprised to find that the metadata format that the art catalog for
• 06:00 - 06:30 instance will have you adhere to is much looser than it had been in the past and I think this was version 10 where this change that could be wrong about that but I remember this change happening so I think it was this version 10 if you want to use the more robust metadata standards that were in place from the national government the federal government here in the United States you needed a special plugin in order to get that template in order to get that form whereas previously it had been available
• 06:30 - 07:00 as a default I believe even for all shape files that are created but it seems to have been a deliberate decision with regard to the metadata to encourage the creation of metadata by not having the metadata forms be intimidating to people and having this very extensive and robust federal metadata standard there maybe I don't know if it's worked or not done maybe there's some kind of study out there
• 07:00 - 07:30 maybe if you see something lighter weight you do end up with more metadata even though it wouldn't be as structured and maybe not adhere to different standards I don't know that's that's the thing we have to think about but in any case it's your responsibility as a GIS analyst to understand any metadata standards that are in place in your organization or agency and adhere to them every single time a data set is created and if you are doing your own project then you need to go ahead and
• 07:30 - 08:00 begin with the habit of creating metadata every time you create a data set list out that you created it when you created it what methods you use to created all of that information go ahead and put that into the metadata if you're using ArcGIS you can do that in our catalog on the metadata tab for all the different feature classes or shapefiles go ahead and enter that information in there and that way you don't have to think about it again and you know that
• 08:00 - 08:30 it's there for your use and other people's use in the end that's really going to be an important part of your GIS data creation and your GIS data management [Music]