INT - Interoperability
General Interoperability Specifications
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INT |
Interoperability Specifications |
Version: 0 |
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Author |
W Hugo |
Draft |
17-12-2015 |
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# |
Concept |
Description |
Reference |
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INT-01 |
Syntactic Interoperability: Meta-Data |
Meta-Data services to be implemented as one of the options listed in the table below. |
INT-01-01 |
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INT-02 |
Syntactic Interoperability: Data |
Data service syntax specifications are strongly domain-dependent. For this reason, services should be linked to relevant application clients via a registry, so that a portfolio of applicable client applications can be maintained by the community. |
INT-02-01 |
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INT-03 |
Schema Interoperability: Meta-Data |
It is likely that support for multiple science domains will result in multiple meta-data schema to support. While it is feasible to support a subset of required schema, it is not scalable to support all. The detailed specification provides a scalable solution. |
INT-03-01 |
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INT-04 |
Schema Interoperability: Data |
Schema interoperability in respect of data poses significant challenges due to the variety and complexity of schema that are present even in a narrow field of study. The specification proposes standardisation in respect of generic aspects of the schema, each community will have to develop and publish a set of accepted formats and schema to extend the specification. |
IN-04_01 |
INT-01-01: Meta-Data Syntax Interoperability
Services will be supported for the following (implementation status in table):
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Schema |
HTTP |
FTP |
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Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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In Process |
Yes |
Yes |
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Scheduled |
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In Process |
In Process |
In Process |
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Scheduled |
INT-02-01: Data Interoperability
INT-03-01: Meta-Data Schema Interoperability
It is not scalable to support all meta-data schema in DIRISA infrastructure. Hence a subset of schema will be supported, with a convention on handling of non-supported schema, as follows:
- The table in INT-02-01 lists all supported meta-data schema. This list may be extended from time to time.
- If a meta-data schema is not supported, then the participating institution should
- Create a Dublin Core or minimum DataCite meta-data record from their own meta-data;
- Link the original meta-data as supplementary data (allowed by both schema).
Dublin Core meta-data:
Use the ‘relation’ (qualified) element to describe the URL to the original meta-data, or to include the XML as a data element. Describe the relation as ‘IsBasisFor’.
Example[WH1] :
<dc:relation >
<dc.relation.Type>IsBasisFor</dc:relation.Type>
<dc.relation.Identifier>www.google.com</dc:relation.Identifier>
</dc:relation>
DataCite meta-data:
Use the ‘relatedIdentifier’ element to describe the URL to the original meta-data, and describe the relationship type as ‘IsMetadataFor’.
Example:
<relatedIdentifier relatedIdentifierType="URL” relationType=”IsMetadataFor”>
http://www.heatflow.und.edu/index2.html
</relatedIdentifier>
INT-04-01: Data Schema Interoperability
Data generally have a set of dimensions; these form the basis of a referencing (key) system for the data. Its main purpose is to uniquely identify instances of data based on a combination of such dimensions.
In addition, data can have qualifying or categorisation values – not necessarily part of the unique identification of a data instance, but used to further enhance or describe the data set by way of typologies, state information, or classifications.
The only two dimensions that can be generically defined with some certainty are time and space: but even for these two, the concepts become quite broad and display significant variation in granularity if the range of disciplines are too wide – paleo-scientists and nuclear physicists have vastly differing granularities to the time dimension of their data, whereas geographers and planetary scientists have the same disparity in respect of spatial dimension.
Specification:
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# |
Aspect |
Description |
Reference |
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INT-04-01-01 |
Time dimension |
Date and Optionally Time Stamp based on ISO 8601 – any allowable format. Technically, these dates are only valid from 1582. |
ISO 8601 |
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INT-04-01-02 |
Pre-Gregorian Dates, very large dates |
If a convention is agreed, then years can be negative (-0001=2BC) and can exceed the four-digit limtation of the original ISO 8601: ±YYYYY |
ISO 8601 |
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INT-04-01-03 |
Timestamps |
Where applicable, UTC time zone information can be added. |
ISO 8601 |
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INT-04-01-05 |
Durations |
ISO 8601 makes provision for definition of a duration in a variation of units of time measurement, |
ISO 8601 |
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INT-04-01-06 |
Geographic Location or Feature |
Can be any of:
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INT-04-01-07 |
Non-Earth Solar System Locations |
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INT-04-01-08 |
Outer Space/ Galaxy Locations |
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[WH1]Needs to be confirmed
