Metadata is data that provides information about other data, not the content of the data, but often links to the data itself. For the purposes of the AusSeabed Data Hub the metadata collected includes the following types:
Descriptive metadata— the descriptive information about a resource. It is used for discovery and identification. It includes elements such as title, abstract, author, and keywords
Structural metadata— metadata about containers of data and indicates how compound/complex objects are put together, for example, what formats data exists in and how the data is structured into containers or folders. It describes the types, versions, conventions, relationships and other characteristics of digital materials
Administrative metadata— the information to help manage a resource, like resource type, permissions, and when and how it was created, when it was last updated.
Reference metadata— the information about the contents such as references, citations and quality of data
Statistical/Process metadata, also called process data, may describe processes that collect, process, or produce data
Legal/Ownership metadata— provides information about the creator, copyright holder, and public licensing, if provided.
This specification is focussed on defining the requirements for a Survey. For the purposes of this specification the term ‘Survey’ is synonymous with Mission or Voyage and represents the highest level metadata from which specific data collections are captured. The Survey may utilise a platform other than a Ship (ie Satellite, Plane, Drove, or AUV) and so the term Voyage was discounted. Mission was deemed to be a broader concept and therefore Survey became the preferred termMultibeam echo sounder (MBES) data has been acquired globally for several decades. Despite efforts to unify MBES acquisition, processing and delivery, there are no globally recognised standards to adhere to. Currently, many organisations use various acquisition systems and parameters, processing strategies and data formats for MBES data. This limits the usability of MBES data, particularly when attempting to combine datasets of different sources to map a large region of the seabed. Therefore, defining MBES specifications is an important step towards standardisation and data sharing.