NetCDF Attribute Convention for Dataset Discovery Report

Identification / Metadata Reference Score: 3/4

As metadata are shared between national and international repositories it is becoming increasing important to be able to unambiguously identify and refer to specific records. This is facilitated by including an identifier in the metadata. Some mechanism must exist for ensuring that these identifiers are unique. This is accomplished by specifying the naming authority or namespace for the identifier. It is the responsibility of the manager of the namespace to ensure that the identifiers in that namespace are unique. Identifying the Metadata Convention being used in the file and providing a link to more complete metadata, possibly using a different convention, are also important.

Text Search Score: 6/7

Text searches are a very important mechanism for data discovery. This group includes attributes that contain descriptive text that could be the target of these searches. Some of these attributes, for example title and summary, might also be displayed in the results of text searches.

Extent Search Score: 8/8

Other Extent Information Score: 6/10

Creator Search Score: 7/9

This group includes attributes that could support searches for people/institutions/projects that are responsible for datasets. This information is also critical for the correct attribution of the people and institutions that produce datasets.

Contributor Search Score: 2/2

This section allows a data provider to include information about those that contribute to a data product in the metadata for the product. This is important for many reasons.

Publisher Search Score: 3/3

This section allows a data provider to include contact information for the publisher of a data product in the metadata for the product.

Other Attributes Score: 3/3

This group includes attributes that don't seem to fit in the other categories.