ICSM ISO19115-1 Metadata Best Practice Guide

Resource Extent ★★★★

   
Element Name extent
Parent MD_Metadata.identificationInfo>MD_Identification
Class/Type EX_Extent
Governance Common ICSM, Domain
Purpose Discovery
Audience machine resource - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  general - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  resource manager - ⭑ ⭑
  specialist - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ (higher if domain specific placenames are used)
Metadata type descriptive
ICSM Level of Agreement ⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Definition

The spatial and temporal extent of the resource.

ISO Obligation

Discussion

Every metadata record describing resources should describe the extent of the area of interest of that resource. This extents descriptions may be surface geographic, vertical and / or temporal and may contain exclusions. Those searching for resources can be provided with a quick idea of the extent of the resource. Software can use these extents to analyses and narrow searches to particular areas of interest.

The use of multiple instances is useful for describing more complicated resources.

ICSM Best Practice Recommendations

Therefore - it is strongly recommended that to support discovery of resources, every metadata record contains, as needed, surface geometric, vertical and temporal extent description of the resource area of interest. Use multiple instances if it helps describe the resource for the user.

Metadata for spatial resources should at a minimum contain bounding box description of the resource. Other dimensions, such as time, should be described when useful.

Also Consider

Outstanding Issues

EX_Extent.description
The “description” element of EX_Extent offers a freeform way of describing the extent of a resource. We have not had any discussion as to the use of this element. GeoNetwork uses it to provide a code list delimited set of values by which the EX_GeographicBoundingBox elements are populated. It would seem more correct to use EX_GeographicDescription and it MD_Identifier element to this purpose.

Crosswalk considerations

Dublin core / CKAN / data.gov.au

Mapping to CKAN and Dublin core elements, particularly as used by data.gov.au needs discussion

Examples

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UML diagrams

Recommended elements highlighted in yellow

Extent

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