Metadata for open data data at Geological Survey of Sweden

Purpose and goal

The purpose of project was to increase the availability of our open data. Since we have published metadata about our open data that can be harvested and will be available on öppnadata.se we see that our data may have a wider distribution and thus greater accessibility. With metadata according to DCAT-AP for user groups who do not normally use standards specific to geographic information may the target audience for our information be broadened.

Results and expected effects

The end result of the project is a DCAT-AP metadata catalog where all of our open data sources are described. The data catalog is published under the URL http://resource.sgu.se/data/datasets/dcat/sgu-oppnadata-dcat-catalog.rdf. The project has also contributed to increased competence and experience of metadata in general and about DCAT-AP in particular for the personnel involved. During the project SGU published a new data set about geochemical analysis data of till samples with a national coverage.

Approach and implementation

The project was divided into different activities that were carried out with some overlap. 1. Analysis of the metadata elements that should be included. 2. Designed metadata catalog that contains all the existing data sources that are open. 3. Publication of metadata catalog in DCAT-AP We chose to include as many metadata elements as possible that are relevant to the data for a good description of the data sources, beyond the mandatory metadata elements we chose to use part of the recommended and optional.