ICSM ISO19115-1 Metadata Best Practice Guide

Resource Lineage ★★★★

Every spatial resource has a history and was built upon other work. Lineage documentation specifies a resource’s source data, transformations, and input/output specifications. Such information is inherently causal, communicating the purpose, theory and meaning embodied in a resource.

   
Element Name citation
Parent MD_Metadata.identificationInfo>MD_Identification
Class/Type CI_Citation
Governance Common ICSM, Agency, Domain
Purpose Discovery, Identification
Audience machine resource - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  general - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  resource manager - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  specialist - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
Metadata type descriptive
ICSM Level of Agreement ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Definition

Information about the provenance, source(s), and/or the production process(es) applied to the resource.

ISO Obligation

ICSM Best Practice Recommendations

Discussion

Lineage metadata provides the user with information about the events, parameters, and source data which constructed the resource, and information about the responsible parties. It provide a good understanding of the original intent and limitations of a resource. It also allows one to reproduce the process or avoid reproducing a process where unnecesary. Lineage information can help specialist users avoid the problem of too heavily citing the same resource by not knowing their sources share common provenance. Lineage information can help custodians more intelligently manage their resources.

Outstanding Issues

CORE ISSUE: We have had insuficient conversation in MDWG about what we want from Lineage metadata to yet make strong recommendations. The resource identified by this property presents a provenance record about its subject or anchor resource. Need to discuss futher and reach agreement as to best practice approach for caturing provenance information.

Recommendations

Therefore - it is strongly recommended, particularly when the resource is authoritative or likely to be used by demanding specialist, the the lineage of the resource be captured in the metadata under resourceLineage. A linage statement should be included with your metadata. If appropriate include process step information for advanced users.

Crosswalk considerations

ISO19139

New attributes were added to improve the description of LI_Source and LI_ProcessStep.

DCAT

MD_Metadata.resourceLineage>LI_Lineage.statement maps to prov:has_Provenance MD_Metadata.resourceLineage>LI_Lineage.source maps to dct:source

RIF-CS

Maps to Description 'lineage'

Also Consider

Examples

XML

<mdb:MD_Metadata>
....
    <mdb:resourceLineage>
        <mrl:LI_Lineage>
            <mrl:statement>
                <gco:CharacterString>this is my resource lineage
                </gco:CharacterString>
            </mrl:statement>
            <mrl:scope>
                <mcc:MD_Scope>
                    <mcc:level>
                        <mcc:MD_ScopeCode 
                        codeList="https://schemas.isotc211.org/19115/resources
                        /Codelist/cat/codelists.xml#MD_ScopeCode" 
                        codeListValue="dataset"/>
                    </mcc:level>
                </mcc:MD_Scope>
            </mrl:scope>
            <mrl:source>
                <mrl:LI_Source>
                    <mrl:description>
                        <gco:CharacterString>this is my source description
                        </gco:CharacterString>
                    </mrl:description>
                </mrl:LI_Source>
            </mrl:source>
        </mrl:LI_Lineage>
    </mdb:resourceLineage>
....
</mdb:MD_Metadata>

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UML diagrams

Recommended elements highlighted in yellow

resourceLineage

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