Project Work Plan

Study Title: South Florida Information Management: Metadata Management and Maintenance
Study Start Date: 1996 Study End Date: 12/31/2004
Web Sites: http://sofia.usgs.gov/; http://sofia.usgs.gov/metadata
Location (Subregions, Counties, Park or Refuge): Total System
Funding Source: USGS Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science (GE PES)
Other Complementary Funding Source(s): none

Principal Investigator(s): Jo Anne Stapleton
Study Personnel: Jo Anne Stapleton
Supporting Organizations: none
Associated / Linked Studies: SOFIA website, SOFIA Environmental Database Development and Maintenance

Overview & Objective(s):

The South Florida restoration effort requires multidisciplinary information relating to present and historical conditions for use in responsible decision-making. Numerous data sets have been created as a result of USGS research conducted in support of the South Florida restoration effort. Metadata provide information for discovering, assessing, and accessing the data sets. The objective is to have accurate, current, FGDC-compliant, searchable metadata for all projects and data sets posted on the South Florida Information Access (SOFIA) website.

Specific Relevance to Major Unanswered Questions and Information Needs Identified:

This task is a PES Core Activity and a GE PES Core Activity. It addresses the following priorities:

1) the applicability of the science to multiple DOI restoration objectives or multiple projects and

2) maximization of cost-share opportunities and science coordination across bureaus or with DOI's CERP partners.

Research is of no use to other than the creator if the information is not documented in a standardized and searchable manner. The FGDC standard for metadata provides standard information element names and search capability so other users, both government and the public, can evaluate the data for use in other analyses, projects, or management decisions. Documentation of projects with FGDC metadata will lessen the chances of funding duplicate research by USGS personnel or CERP partners. Searches on project metadata can help determine whether proposed work is new, an extension or redirection of current work, or duplicates work in progress or done previously.

The metadata also needs to be kept current or at the very least checked periodically for changes such as contact information, distribution methods or new data products associated with projects.

Status:

All studies funded in FY 2004 by the Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science (GE PES) will have updated metadata records posted on the SOFIA website by the end of FY 2004. Six completed projects have updated metadata posted on SOFIA.

Recent Products:

Updated metadata records

Planned Products:

Fact sheet on South Florida metadata for the Greater Everglades PES Program

Poster for presentation at the National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration, Dec. 2004

WORK PLAN

Title of Task 1: South Florida Information Management: Metadata Management and Maintenance
Task Funding: USGS Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science (GE PES)
Task Leaders: Jo Anne Stapleton
Phone: 703 648-4592
FAX: 703 648-4614
Task Status): active
Task priority: medium
Time Frame for Task 1:
Task Personnel: Jo Anne Stapleton

Task Summary and Objectives:

The objectives of the metadata project are to document the projects and the data sets produced as a result of USGS research in South Florida and to make the metadata and data sets available to potential customers, managers, and policy makers. The metadata contain information about the contents of the data sets, why the data was collected or created, who collected or created the data, the accuracy of the data, the contacts for questions about the data, and how to obtain the data. The metadata are available through the SOFIA website at http://sofia.usgs.gov.

All of the FY 2004 Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science (GE PES)-funded projects have current metadata records. Previously completed projects have been identified and work has started on updating the metadata for those projects.

Work to be undertaken during the proposal year and a description of the methods and procedures:

Specific Task Product(s):

This task will transition to another part of SOFIA (TBD) in January 2005.

Work planned in Reston for the first quarter of FY 2005 is to update as much of the metadata for completed projects as possible. The metadata will be generated using COTS software (SMMS from Intergraph Corp.) and processed through the metadata parser to ensure compliance with the FGDC metadata standard.

As of October 1, 2004 the metadata for projects and data sets will be done by personnel in the office of the SOFIA Project Manager, Roy Sonenshein, in Miami, FL or another part of SOFIA (TBD) at a later date. Any supporting materials that are requested will be shipped from Reston to the appropriate office by the end of December 2004.