Final report of the ICES/IOC study group on the development of marine data exchange systems using XML,

Abstract : In 2001 the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) cooperatively formed a Study Group to examine the application of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to marine data exchange systems. The Study Group first met in April 2002 to address issues around the transfer of oceanographic data. The Group has met three times, with the final meeting in May 2004. This document represents the final report of the Group. The Study Group concentrated its efforts on metadata standards, parameter dictionaries and generic data structures for use in an XML-based language. The Group evaluated several international metadata structures and produced mappings between some structures. In terms of the parameter dictionaries, the Group conducted mappings between several international parameter dictionaries, made structural advances to some dictionaries and attempted to account for dictionary issues imposed by units. The generic data structure development produced about 20 data objects that were then used to create an XML data structure for the transport of ocean environmental data. The structure was applied to one and threedimensional data sets. The Group has also made numerous recommendations to continue the development of international data exchange systems.