Supporting Documents
This page lists a series of documents being developed to assist contributors in providing data and metadata.
Policy Document: Limiting Access to Sensitive Data in CoRIS
This policy document outlines the process, criteria, and types of access from the Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS) for specific types of coral research data that require limited access, as defined by the Coral Reef Conservation Program. View the policy document here (pdf, 108kb).
Technical Guidelines for Metadata Preparation
Technical Guidelines for Metadata Preparation, Version 4.3. November 2009 (pdf, 148kb)
This document provides an overview of the CoRIS project and the importance of metadata to CoRIS. It outlines CoRIS required metadata elements, presents guidelines and instructions for completing metadata fields, provides sample metadata, and contains ASCII metadata templates for CoRIS as well as for the full FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee) standard. It also provides links to Web sites with metadata standards and tools for working with metadata.
Keywords Used in Metadata
These documents contain lists of keywords used in metadata to help describe coral reef data sets. The lists are useful in creating metadata and in searching for coral reef data and information.
Theme Keywords
Discovery Keywords
Place Keywords
Biological Data - Taxonomy
Many data sets, and their metadata, include lists of species about which data are available. The files include scientific names with their corresponding higher taxa. The format is typically: Genus species - Family - Order - Class - Phylum - Kingdom.
Taxon information is frequently identified from one of the following resources:
Metadata Examples
Several CoRIS metadata records are presented as examples for different data types.
- Aerial Photography Photomosaic Benthic Habitat
- Benthic Habitat Type Map
- Biological Non-Indigenous Species
- Gridded Bathymetry
- Habitat Monitoring and Assessment
- Near Real Time Meteorological and Oceanographic Observations
- Remote Sensing Imagery for Visual Interpretation
- Satellite Remote Sensing of Near Real Time Coral Thermal Stress
- Submersible Dive Biological Observations
-
Surface Velocity Profiling Drifters
- Oceanographic and Meteorological Time Series
Water Quality Monitoring
FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata - ASCII and XML Templates
The following two, blank metadata templates are based on basic FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata and are provided as an aid to persons preparing metadata for CoRIS. Please note that the templates include only those metadata fields that NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) requires be completed by persons submitting metadata to CoRIS. The blank metadata templates are presented in both .txt and .xml formats; however, CoRIS requests that metadata be provided in a .xml format to the project.
Blank ASCII Metadata Record - Minimum CRCP Fields
Blank XML Metadata Record - Minimum CRCP Fields
Metadata Crosswalk
The relationship between the FGDC, MARC21, and Dublin Core metadata standards are presented in the Metadata Crosswalk (pdf, 756 kb).
CoRIS Development
The following documents provide additional background context of the early stages of CoRIS development: