Abstract

Introduction to Metadata for Managers
Track: Spatial Data Infrastructure
Authors: Lakshmi Sankaran, GISP, Nancy Riley Church

It's all about communicating your standards. Data about your data (metadata) is a critical component to any GIS and it's recently been reported that over 75% of GIS operations fail to adequately document their data for regional or national sharing. This is hardly surprising since metadata generation is probably the least favorite task in any GIS operation and generally the last to be accomplished. This presentation introduces participants to metadata requirements including recent changes to Florida State Law and the FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) standards. Simple and complex approaches to documenting your data in ArcGIS and through other methods will be reviewed. Upcoming changes to metadata requirements including both ISO 19115 and the North American Profile (NAP) of ISO 19115 requirements will be presented. Also discussed will be ArcCatalog's metadata generating and maintenance capabilities and an approach to a migration plan from earlier software versions.