FGDC Metadata Usage Guide for CEIC Compatibility and Integration 

CEIC uses the FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) to create catalog entries describing information resources in California. This standard is often referred to simply as the “FGDC Standard”.

Although the FGDC standard was developed to robustly describe geo-spatial data in particular, it is also well suited to describing more general resources including documents, archives, publications, web services, etc. This is because the standard is divided into discrete sections each describing a different aspect of the resource. CEIC focuses on sections 1 (Identification Information), 7 (Metadata Information)  and 8 (Citation Information) of the standard in order to fulfill the minimum content requirements and to collect the resource attributes that are most useful in creating a general purpose resource discovery tool. That is, the attributes that answer the questions: What is it? Who created it? What is it about? What geographic place is it about? And How can I view/get it?. Sections 2 through 5 focus on attributes of geo-spatial data in particular, while section 6 describes distribution information.

The FGDC standard enjoys widespread use among government and private sector communities and is supported by GIS software vendors including ESRI(ArcCatalog) and Intergraph(SMMS).  It is also the standard used by the National Spatial Data Infrastructure and the new GeoSpatial One-Stop program to support national clearinghouse and cataloging functions.

Organizations that adopt the FGDC standard ensure their compatibility with a growing universe of resource cataloging and discovery efforts spanning federal and local governments, academic institutions, and the public sector.

For more information about FGDC metadata standards see http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/metadata.html
For a helpful graphical guide the the FGDC standard see http://biology.usgs.gov/fgdc.metadata/version2/

Metadata Field Descriptions

Metadata section requirements for the California Environmental Information Catalog (CEIC) are presented below. The numbers in parentheses following field names are references to the section definition in the Federal Geographic Data Committee Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata. The list specifies the required components of the standard necessary to be compatible with the CERES CEIC system. Note that many components cited are compound elements fully described within the full standard. For field level specifications refer to the cited section of the standard.

/Title (8.4)/ REQUIRED

A brief phrase describing the information resource. Remember that Title will be what CEIC displays when users browse listings often in alphabetic order, starting the phrase with “The…” , “A… ” or  “City of …” is not advised.

/Originator (8.1)/ REQUIRED

The name of an organization or individual that developed the data set. If the name of editors or compilers are provided, the name must be followed by “(ed.)” or “(comp.)” respectively.
Take care to use the official name for an organization or at least be consistent in your usage e.g. “CERES”. Note: A California organization name thesaurus may be made available by CERES to use as a guide.

/Publication Date (8.2)/ REQUIRED

The date when the information resource was published or otherwise made available for use. Enter the date using a yyyymmdd format. For example an information resource updated March 15, 1995 would be entered as 19950315. When the exact date is unknown, use an approximated date. It is also acceptable to enter only year YYYY, or year and month YYYYMM.

/Information Resource Type (8.6)/ REQUIRED

The type of information resource being documented.  The CERES online thesaurus tool may be utilized to specify a resource type. The following list are the CERES preferred terms. 

Archive
Materials which have documentary value, i.e. Private papers, institutional records, memorabilia, photographs, etc.
Atlas
A collection of tables, charts, illustrations, etc. on a specific subject or subjects.
Audio-visual materials
Materials such as films, videos, flimstrips, recordings, radio, etc.
Bibliography
A list of sources of information on a given subject, period, etc, or of the written works of a given author, publisher, etc.
Catalog
An extensive alphabetical list of items, typically containing descriptive comments and often with illustrations.
Collection
An accumultion of information resources.
Database
A large collection of data in a computer, organized so that it can be expanded, updated, and retrived rapidly for various uses.
Document
A printed, written piece of information.
Drawing
A picture, design, sketch, etc.
Expertise
The skill, knowledge, judgement of an expert.
Image
An imitation or representation of a person or thing, drawn, painted, phtographed, digitized, etc.
Information service
Instructional materials
A material for use in education such as lesson plans.
Map
A drawing or other representation of all or part of the earth’s surface, ordinarially showing countries, bodies of waters, cities, mountains, etc.
Model
A small copy or imitation of an existing object.
Multi-media
A combination of media, either digital or analog, such as film, tape recordings, slides, and special lighting effects used for entertainment or education.
Organization
A unified, consolidated group of elements; a systematized whole, especially a body of persons organized for some specific purpose.
Protocol
A set of rules governing the communication and the transfer of data between machines, as in a computer system.
Remote sensing data
Satellite images, Hyper-spectral datasets, etc.
Software
The programs, routines, etc. for a computer.
Sound recording
Analog or digital recording of audio transmissions, i.e. Radio, television, film, musical recordings, etc.
Spatial data
GIS/Vector datasets
Survey
A detailed study or inspection, as by gathering information though observations, questionnaires, etc. and subsequent analysis.

/Other Citation Details (8.9)/ OPTIONAL

Include other information that may be required to provide a complete citation for this information resource. Additional detail describing the source characteristics of the information resource, basemap referenced, projection data, etc. may be included.

/Abstract (1.2.1)/ REQUIRED

The abstract is a brief narrative summary of the information resource such as its intended use and limitations. The narrative should provide enough general information to allow the user to determine if the information resource has sufficient potential to warrant contacting the provider for further information. The abstract should not exceed 500 words in length.

/Browse Graphic (1.10)/ OPTIONAL

A browse graphic image provides an illustration of the information resource. The image may be a small sample or an overview of the information resource. It is good practice to keep the image size small to minimize image download time. You may provide a URL to the image, a Caption (descriptive text to display with the image), and a File Type (graphic image format).

/Purpose (1.2.2)/ REQUIRED

Summarize the intentions with which the information resource was developed. This element describes why the information resource is offered and identifies other programs, projects, and legislative actions responsible for the establishment or continued deliver of this information resource. It may include the origin, lineage and related information resources.

/Supplemental Information (1.2.3)/ OPTIONAL

Include other descriptive information about the information resource.

/Time Period (1.3)/ REQUIRED

The starting and ending dates that define the period for which the information resource corresponds to. Enter the date using a yyyymmdd format. For example an information resource updated March 15, 1995 would be entered as 19950315. When the exact date is unknown, use an approximated date. It is also acceptable to enter only year YYYY, or year and month YYYYMM.

/Currentness (1.3.1)/ REQUIRED

The basis for which the time period is determined. ”Ground Condition” indicates the data represents what was on the ground during the “Time Period”. ”Publication Date” indicates the data represents the data that was incorporated into the information resource during the “Time Period”.

/Progress (1.4.1)/ REQUIRED

The current state of the information resource. ”Complete” indicates the information resource is complete for the “Time Period”. *”In Work” *indicates the information resource is incomplete and still being developed. ”Planned” indicates the information resource is not yet started but is pending development at a future date. Planned offers the opportunity to advertise for potential data development collaboration.

/Update Frequency (1.4.2)/ REQUIRED

The frequency with which changes and additions are made to the information resource after the initial information resource is completed.

Continually
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Annually
Unknown
As needed
Irregular
None planned

/Bounding Box (1.5.1)/ REQUIRED

The limits of coverage of a information resource expressed by latitude and longitude values. West and East values are expressed in longitude from -180.0 to 180.0. North and South values are expressed in latitude from -90.0 to 90.0.

Although a bounding box is required in the FDGC standard, CEIC uses the approach of associating known place (e.g. Marin Coastal Hydrologic Unit) with a catalog entry. This approach allows us to use polygon based GIS to produce more accurate geographic search results. CERES provides and online tool for this purpose called the GeoFinder. Instead of entering explicit coordinates, you may select a specific place of the following types:
Urban Area, County, Bioregion, Watershed, Zip Code, or USGS 7.5 min quad. The Bounding Box
fields will be populated from the spatial extent of the selected area.

/Themes (1.6)/ REQUIRED

Themes are keywords and phrases that describe the subject of the information resource and will be used to by Catalog users to search for information resources.  Thoughtful use of appropriate theme keywords is critical to creating a well annotated catalog entry. CERES provides an online thesaurus tool to aid in this step. The CERES Environmental Thesaurus was developed specifically to support the annotation of environmental resources. Addition thesauri which are specific to other domains of interest have also been developed and will soon be usable via the CERES online tool as well. 

/Access Limitations (1.7)/ REQUIRED

Access limitations are restrictions and prerequisites for accessing the information resource. This field describes any constrains or legal prerequisites for accessing the information resource or its component products or services. This includes any access constraints applied to assure the protection of privacy or intellectual property and any other special restrictions or limitation on accessing the information.
Contractual obligations or fees necessary to gain access to the information resource should be referenced here.

Generic limitations (*No Restrictions, Public, Sensitive*) may be selected. Agencies should consider specific statements of access limitations that can be placed within the dialog area when Other is selected. A simple copy and paste command from a word document will simplify including verbose access limitation statements.

/Limits on Use (1.8)/ REQUIRED

Restrictions and prerequisites for using the information resource. This field describes any constrains or legal prerequisites for using the information resource or its component products or services. This includes any use constraints applied to assure the protection of privacy or intellectual property and any other special restrictions or limitation on using the information.

Generic limitations (*No Restrictions, Education Only, Non-Commercial Only, No Online Display, No restrictions*) may be selected. Agencies should consider specific statements of use limitations that can be placed within the dialog area when Other is selected. A simple copy and paste command from a word document will simplify including verbose use limitation statements.

/Data Contact (1.9)/ REQUIRED

The contact who should serve as the reference for the information resource. The contact should be the expert or administrative contact to address information resource specific questions. The mandatory components of a contact are:
	10.1 Contact Person Primary
	10.4 Contact Address
	10.5 Contact Voice Telephone
	10.8 Contact Electronic Mail Address
Note: An integrated cross agency, inter-organizational contact management web service is currently in design phase. The goal of this system would be to reduce the effort of collecting and maintaining contact details.    

/Online Linkage (8.10)/ OPTIONAL

The URL for obtaining the information resource. If the information resource is available on-line, enter a URL for accessing it. This filed provides the information needed to contact an automated system made available by this distributor, expressed in a form that can be interpreted bay a computer (i.e., URL). Available linkages are appropriate to reference other locators, facilitate electronic deliver of off-the-shelf information products, or guide the user to data systems that support analysis and synthesis of information.

/Distribution Format/ OPTIONAL

Select from the following pre-defined choices or enter a brief name of a format.

ARCE 	ARC/INFO Export format
ARCG 	ARC/INFO Generate format
ASCII 	ASCII file, formatted for text attributes, declared format CDF 	Common Data Format
CFF 	Cartographic Feature File (U.S. Forest Service) COORD 	User-created coordinate file, declared format DEM 	Digital Elevation Model format (U.S. Geological Survey) DGN 	Microstation format (Intergraph Corporation) DIGEST 	Digital Geographic Information Exchange Standard DLG 	Digital Line Graph (U.S. Geological Survey) DTED 	Digital Terrain Elevation Data (MIL-D-89020) DWG 	AutoCAD Drawing format
DXF 	AutoCAD Drawing Exchange Format ERDAS 	ERDAS image files (ERDAS Corporation) GRASS 	Geographic Resources Analysis Support System HDF 	Hierarchical Data Format
IGDS 	Interactive Graphic Design System format (Intergraph Corporation) IGES 	Initial Graphics Exchange Standard MOSS 	Multiple Overlay Statistical System export file NITF 	National Imagery Transfer Format RPF 	Raster Product Format (Defense Mapping Agency) SDTS 	Spatial Data Transfer Standard (Federal Information Processing Standard 173)
SHP 	ESRI Shape File
SIF 	Standard Interchange Format (DOD Project 2851) TGRLN 	TIGER Line format
TIFF 	Tagged Image File Format
VPF 	Vector Product Format (Defense Mapping Agency)

/Ordering Information/ OPTIONAL

Describe the process for ordering the information resource. Include instructions and advice about, and special terms and services provided for, the information resource by the distributor.

/Distributor Contact (6.1)/ OPTIONAL

Contact information about the person and organization that distributes the information resource. Select from the names associated with the Catalog you are adding the metadata record to. You may also define a new contact.

/Metadata Date (7.1)/ REQUIRED

The date on which the metadata was created or last updated.

/Metadata Contact (7.4)/ REQUIRED

Contact information about the person and organization that created the metadata. 

/Metadata Name (7.5)/
use: FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata

/Metadata Version (7.6)/
use: FGDC-STD-001-1998