GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

By teaming researchers and oceanographic data managers with the OGC SWE development team, the authors plan to infuse metadata streams with standards to describe and discover QA/QC information, specific to in situ •ocean observations.

• The team recognizes that existing standards in metadata are in use today and plan to build upon these efforts concurrent with the development of data transport and discovery initiatives. This project will provide an opportunity to develop standards in QA/QC within the framework of the evolving Sensor Web Enablement initiative of the international standards-based Open Geospatial Consortium, which is currently being implemented throughout the ocean observing community.

• To assure a full life cycle (collection-to-public delivery), tools and vocabularies must be made available to adequately define processing, assessment and controls of each ocean observation. The project will provide the dictionary, tools and tutorials necessary to implement standards, which include defined QA/QC vocabularies and the associated SensorML profiles.

• To establish robust data exchange that is responsive to variable consumer requirements, the project will develop vocabularies and services that provide flexibility in reporting QA/QC information. Providing vocabularies and services to describe what was done to data, rather than how it must be done, ensures broader participation from local data nodes and provides more information for the end-user, who will have more discretion on data
selection.

Towards that end, the project will draw in members of the QARTOD community from each focus area to implement their QA/QC recommended standards through OGC-Sensor Web Enablement for the four basic in situ ocean observations: waves, currents, CTD and dissolved oxygen.