Discovery and Provenance Metadata for Persistent Data Objects

[Arnold Rots]

In the context of the IVOA DC&P Interest Group there has been a fair
bit of discussion about persistent dataset identifiers and data
publishing repositories.
One of the topics that has come up is how to extract/compile metadata
for the data objects that are to be published in a persistent
repository. It is clear that this needs to be made as painless as
possible for users contributing data.
However, what has been missing from that discussion is an assessment
of what should be contained in those metadata - both the descriptive
metadata required for data discovery and the provenance metadata
needed to support the ability to follow the data's trail back to its
origins.

I have put a first draft together for a metadata standard for these
individual persistent data objects. This is distinct from the resource
metadata standard that exists for entire repositories, but not
altogether dissimilar from it. I will talk about it at the DCP session
at the Interop.

It also occurred to me that there are aspects of this that touch
on other IVOA areas and that it would be good to try to avoid
divergent developments. Hence the somewhat wide distribution.

Cheers,

  - Arnold Rots

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Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head.cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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