marine data standards >
Standards are essential to enable easy discovery and use of data. MEDIN has an agreed process, which involves key stakeholders, to approve standards which should then be used by MEDIN partners. An overview presentation of MEDIN standards can be downloaded here.
Where possible, existing standards are used or edited to meet MEDIN needs – these may be accessed in the ‘Other Marine Data Standards’ pages. Once approved by MEDIN they are made available in the ‘MEDIN approved standards’ page.
The most common standard is one that sets out a specific format to record details of a data set so that in the future other people can easily discover data sets that may be of use to them. This is termed a 'metadata discovery standard' and MEDIN has derived its own format and a number of tools to produce complient metadata, which conforms to international requirements (eg INSPIRE).
MEDIN is also in the process of deriving data guidelines comprising requirements as to what must be recorded when data of a certain theme is being collected. This will allow easier reuse of the data in the future. For example, if benthic invertebrate samples are collected, the instrument used to sample, the sieve size and taxonomic list used to record species should also be stated and use common lists of terms. MEDIN approved data guidelines are available here and other resources are provided at other marine data standards.
Metadata Helpline: Hannah Freeman +44 (0)151 795 4884