Standards Support
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Standards Support

The Geoportal extension 9.3.1 supports several metadata standards by default. The Metadata Editor tool will generate valid metadata for each of these with no configuration required. The metadata created with the tool is not exhaustive and will not include all elements defined in the standards. However, elements that are considered mandatory to the standard or that enhance the usability of the metadata for geographic purposes are included. Details for the out-of-the-box standards that Geoportal extension supports are given below.

  1. FGDC

    The FGDC standard comes from the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata, a publication authored by the United States' Federal Geographic Data Committee that specifies the information content of metadata for digital geospatial datasets. The standard provides a common set of terminology for concepts related to the metadata. U.S. government agencies that receive federal funds to create metadata had to follow this standard in the past. Now there is a move for government agencies to use the North American Profile for their metadata instead. The FGDC standard implementation is freely available online, and contains 334 elements.



    Files in the Geoportal extension 9.3.1 that define support for FGDC are: "fgdc-bestpractice-template.xml", "fgdc-bestpractice-definition.xml", and "fgdc-toEsriFgdc.xslt".


  2. ISO 19139/19115 Dataset

    ISO standards come from the International Organization for Standardization, a federation of standards institutes from 145 countries that work to define criteria for international standards. The ISO 19139 standard is the implementation of the ISO 19115 standard. ISO 19115 defines the schema required for describing geographic information and services. Although it provides information on what elements should be included when describing a geographic resource, it does not provide details on how these elements should be coded in an XML document. ISO 19139 provides such details. The ISO 19139/19115 is used for describing geographic datasets. A quick test to identify that a document is of an ISO 19139 flavor is to look for a <MD_Metadata> tag at the beginning of the document. To distinguish an ISO 19115 Dataset document from an ISO 19119 Services document, check for the presence of <SV_ServiceIdentification> tags, which will only be present in the ISO 19119 Services document. The ISO standards must be purchased, and are available at http://www.iso.org/iso/store.htm.



    Files in the Geoportal extension 9.3.1 that define support for ISO 19139/19115 Dataset are: "iso19139-coregeog-template.xml", "iso19139-coregeog-definition.xml", and "iso19139-coregeog-toEsriIso.xslt"


  3. ISO 19139/19119 Services

    The ISO 19119 standard also comes from the International Organization for Standardization. This standard should be used to create metadata that conforms to ISO 19139/19115 but is specifically for a web service. A web service is a software component accessible over the World Wide Web for use in other applications. Web services are built using industry standards such as XML and SOAP, and thus are not dependent on any particular operating system or programming language. Examples of web services are ArcIMS Services, ArcGIS Services, Open GeoSpatial Consortium (OGC) CSW, WMS, WFS, and WCS. The ISO 19119 standard must be purchased, just like the ISO 19139/19115 Dataset standard.



    Files in the Geoportal extension 9.3.1 that define support for ISO 19139/19119 Services are: "iso19139-services-template.xml", "iso19139-services-definition.xml", and "iso19139-services-toEsriIso.xslt"


  4. North American Profile (Dataset and Services)

    In the past, U.S. government agencies were mandated to use the FGDC standard for formatting metadata. Recently, this has changed, as it has become important for an internationally recognized standard to be used to facilitate data sharing across borders, specifically on the North American continent. The North American Profile is based on the ISO 19115 (dataset) and ISO 19119 (services) metadata profile, but implements additional mandatory values that are not mandatory as per the ISO standards alone. For more information on the North American Profile, see the Federal Geographic Data Committee's NAP website.



    Files in the Geoportal extension 9.3.1 that define support for the North American Profile are: "iso19139-NAP-data-minimum-template.xml", "iso19139-NAP-service-minimum-definition.xml", and "iso19139-NAP-service-minimum-template.xml".


  5. INSPIRE Metadata

    INSPIRE (Spatial Information in Europe) hosts a metadata catalog that focuses on bringing together quality geographic information to a single access point for Europe. INSPIRE metadata is based on the ISO 19115 (dataset) and ISO 19119 (services) standard. INSPIRE also implements extended elements and different mandatory elements than the standard ISO. For more information about INSPIRE, see the INSPIRE Community Geoportal.



    Files in the Geoportal extension 9.3.1 that define support for INSPIRE metadata are: "INSPIRE-iso19115-definition.xml", "INSPIRE-iso19115-template.xml", "INSPIRE-iso19115-toEsriIso.xslt", "INSPIRE-iso19119-definition.xml", "INSPIRE-iso19119-template.xml", and "INSPIRE-iso19119-toEsriIso.xslt".
  6. Dublin Core

    The Dublin Core standard comes from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). The DCMI is an open international organization that seeks to build consensus in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. The Dublin Core standard has two levels: Simple and Qualified. Simple Dublin Core describes fifteen elements, whereas the Qualified Dublin Core has additional elements and element refinements. The GPT 9.3.1 Metadata Editor for Dublin Core follows the Simple Dublin Core. A quick test to identify that a document is Dublin Core is if the metadata tags have "dc" in them (for example, <dc:title>). The Dublin Core standard is freely available online.



    Files in the Geoportal extension 9.3.1 that define support for Dublin Core are: "dc-template.xml", "dc-definition.xml", and "dc-toEsriIso.xslt"


  7. ESRI-ISO

    ESRI-ISO is a standard created by ESRI prior to the publication of ISO 19139. It is an interpretation of the ISO 19115 schema, and therefore will relate to the same elements as the ISO 19139/19115 standard but use different tags. ESRI-ISO will also include an <ESRI> section that contains tags especially useful to ESRI software. There is no publicly available guide to the ESRI-ISO standard, as it is not an official standard but an interpretation of ISO 19115.



    Files in the Geoportal extension 9.3.1 that define support for ESRI-ISO are: "esri-iso-template.xml" and "esri-iso-definition.xml".