Project Summary Sheet

Study Title: South Florida Information Management: Metadata Management and Maintenance
Study Start Date: 1996 Study End Date: 12/31/2004
Web Sites: http://sofia.usgs.gov/metadata/index.html, http://sofia.usgs.gov
Location (Subregions, Counties, Park or Refuge): Total System
Funding Source: PES
Principal Investigator(s): Jo Anne Stapleton
Study Personnel: Jo Anne Stapleton
Supporting Organizations: none
Associated / Linked Studies: SOFIA website, SOFIA Environmental Database Development and Maintenance

Overview & Objective(s):
The South Florida restoration effort requires multidisciplinary information relating to present and historical conditions for use in responsible decision-making. Numerous data sets have been created as a result of USGS research conducted in support of the South Florida restoration effort. Metadata provide information for discovering, assessing, and accessing the data sets. The objective is to have accurate, current, FGDC-compliant, searchable metadata for all projects and data sets posted on the South Florida Information Access (SOFIA) website.

Status:
All the projects funded for FY 2004 either have current FGDC-compliant metadata or the metadata record is in work and will be posted by the end of the fiscal year on the SOFIA website. Over 100 data sets have current or updated metadata available. A review of existing metadata records for former projects has identified which records need to be created, updated, or deleted. Work has started on updating the metadata for all completed projects. (The data set metadata portion of this activity has been taken over by the office of the SOFIA Program Manager.)

Recent Products: Updated metadata records that are posted on the SOFIA website at http://sofia.usgs.gov.

Planned Products: A combined poster on the SOFIA website, metadata, database, and graphic data interface to be presented at the National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration, December 2004, a fact sheet on metadata for the Greater Everglades PES projects and data sets, and probably demonstrations on the SOFIA website including the metadata.

Specific Relevance to Information Needs Identified in DOI's Science Plan in Support of Ecosystem Restoration, Preservation, and Protection in South Florida (DOI's Everglades Science Plan) [See Plan on SOFIA's Web site: http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/reports/doi-science-plan/]:

The metadata portion of SOFIA supports all the projects and data sets that have resulted from the USGS studies in the Greater Everglades. Executive Order 12906 mandates that all Federally-produced data available on the Internet has to have FGDC-compliant metadata accompanying it. Good, complete FGDC-compliant metadata facilitate the applicability of the USGS science to multiple DOI restoration objectives or multiple projects by allowing potential users of the data to discover and evaluate the data for use in projects. Project metadata aids science coordination across bureaus or with DOI's CERP partners by documenting current and prior research efforts to avoid duplication of research projects

Key Findings:

1. Scientists believe in the value of metadata and want metadata for their data
2. Scientists need assistance in creating FGDC-complaint metadata due to the complexity of the FGDC metadata standard
3. Even good metadata is useless unless it is maintained and kept current with yearly reviews and updates as needed