Esperanto, Klingon,orOther: Metadata Implications forGlobalMarine Observations

For two years,the Marine Metadata Interoperability (MMI)project hasfocused onimproving marine datasystemsinteroperability. Throughcommunity organizing andtechnical development, MMI hasbroadened awareness ofthe problems, increased community participation initssolutions, and advanced efforts towardinteroperable datasystems design. Theseuniversal themesmatchMMI'svision andmission, and demandan opencultural and technical approach. In this presentation wepursuethefollowing questions: - How dowe ensure thetechnical needsandperspectives of theinternational marinedatamanagementcommunity are wellmet? - Whatcultural challenges mustwe overcometoengagethe widest possible membership andparticipation? - How canwe contribute toa trulycommon observing infrastructure, andnotjust theoretical ideas? Good practices in datamanagement,metadata, and engineering allrepresent international ambitions. Although funding sources fortheMarineMetadata Interoperability project havebeenexclusively American, theproject hasalwayshad international participation andflavor. Our original Steering Committee included international membership (RoyLowry,of theBritish Oceanographic DataCentre), andseveral ofour technical contributors arenotfromtheUnitedStates. In presentations andmeetings in2005inBrest, France, andSardinia, Italy, thePrincipal Investigator foundeagerlisteners andmuch agreement ongoals andmethods. Thatsaid, theproject isnotyeta consistent leader inthe realmofinternational community participation. Asakeyelement ofmanyarchitectural andmetadata development processes inthe U.S., itisimportant thatMMI makethenecessary international connections toensuremaximuminteroperability acrossalldata systems. Whatarethese connections, howwill wemakethem, and howwill theresults leadtoabetter global observing systemfor theworld's oceans? Ourefforts will goforward onthree fronts. Technical work must be consistent withinternational activities, cognizant ofthoseactivities, andadoptable bythem. Datamanagement takes manyforms, depending onresources and needs,and MMI mustaddressallthedifferent levels of sophistication and semanticinteraction. One obvious consideration islinguistic-despite themantrathatscience is performed inEnglish, local languages willalways beastaple in scientific endeavors. So MMI technical solutions must be language-friendly. Andtothedegree datasystems aredeveloped differently indifferent environments, MMI mustbeattentive to those differences.