Esperanto, Klingon, or Other: Metadata Implications for Global Marine Observations

For two years, the Marine Metadata Interoperability (MMI) project has focused on improving marine data systems interoperability. Through community organizing and technical development, MMI has broadened awareness of the problems, increased community participation in its solutions, and advanced efforts toward interoperable data systems design. These universal themes match MMI's vision and mission, and demand an open cultural and technical approach. Good practices in data management, metadata, and engineering all represent international ambitions. Although funding sources for the Marine Metadata Interoperability project have been exclusively American, the project has always had international participation and flavor. Our original Steering Committee included international membership (Roy Lowry, of the British Oceanographic Data Centre), and several of our technical contributors are not from the United States. In presentations and meetings in 2005 in Brest, France, and Sardinia, Italy, the Principal Investigator found eager listeners and much agreement on goals and methods