GeoNetwork @ The Department of Agriculture and Water Reseources - Evert Bleys Presented at the ANDS facilitated GeoNetwork Community of Practice on April 3rd, 2017 in Canberra.

1. GeoNetwork @
The Department of
Agriculture and
Water Resources
Evert BLEYS, part of the ABARES GN team
Australian Bureau of Agricultural
and Resource Economics and Sciences
2017‐04‐03T10:10
Research by the
Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences

2. What will a metadata tool be used for in the department?
•ABARES
• ~3800 existing records
• Publications
• Datasets produced by ABARES
• Datasets acquired form external sources
• Future:
• services provided by department
• services of use to the department
•Department as a whole
• Data holdings, currently MS Excel
• Spatial data
• Applications
2

3. The department has asked data custodians to do WHAT?

4. How did we get here?
•2003
• reconfigures Isite2 to use ISO 19115:2003 (updated to support services in 2005)
• Use XML Spy to exit XMLs
• Develop VBA editor interface (build and abandon)
•2008
• Move to oXygen to edit XMLs
• Implement GeoNetwork on development server
• Attempt to develop x‐forms interface for GN (work with LISA Soft)
• Request GN install on production server
•2009, 2010, … 2015
• Request GN install on production server
•2016
• Simon Pigot installs GN 2.10 on pre-prod & production server (connect to Oracle DB)
•2017 (Isite still running, unattended since 2008)
• Installs GN 3.2.0 on pre-prod & production server
• Undertake serious efforts to configure
• Usability testing starting April 4

5. What does GN look like for the department?
5
3.2.0: Very Promising

6. At this moment?
Java
Schemas
XSLt
Search
XML
Skins
&
Facets
conf-edstring
label json
directorie
???
Directives
Thesauri
Lots of work done, not quite finished

7. Getting close: so whats not right yet?
•Database
• 3.2 connection to Oracle® not currently supported (PostgreSQL just fine)
•Transforms ISO 19139 to ISO 19115‐3
• Not happening within application
• Interesting
• Errors
• Dissociations
•Gn‐data directives
• We broke the ones that were there
• We need additional ones
•Thesauri directives
• Some still seem to work
• But the others? 7

8. 8
•Skins to meet business needs
• indexes and facets
• Display style‐sheets to display information in the appropriate order
•Start up, compact/default view, full view
•Connection to department's preferred database (Oracle®)
•Access to all required directives (“data‐gn‐*” pre‐prepared snippets)
•Usability testing
•User acceptance
•Access for department's preferred browser (MS IE11)
What our implementation doesn't have yet!

9. 9
•Skins to meet business needs
• indexes and facets
• Display style‐sheets to display information in the appropriate order
•Start up, compact/default view, full view
•Connection to department's preferred database (Oracle®)
•Access to all required directives (“data‐gn‐*” pre‐prepared snippets)
•Usability testing
•User acceptance
•Access for department's preferred browser (MS IE11)
What our implementation doesn't have yet!

10. 10
•Skins to meet business needs
• indexes and facets
• Display style‐sheets to display information in the appropriate order
•Start up, compact/default view, full view
•Connection to department's preferred database (Oracle®)
•Access to all required directives (“data‐gn‐*” pre‐prepared snippets)
•Usability testing
•User acceptance
•Access for department's preferred browser (MS IE11)
What our implementation doesn't have yet!

11. 11
What our implementation doesn't have yet!

12. What doesn't appear to be quite right in 3.2?
•3.2 config‐editor.xml
• not conform to master schema
•Flat by default
•Scatter of concerns
•Directive development
•ISO19139to19115‐3 XSLt
• Doesn't import records
• XSLt inserts interesting assumptions and artefacts [srv:couplingType]
•...
12

13. 13
Who do we need to fix it?
java
developer
XML
XSL
specialist
standards
specialist
usability
specialist
FUNDER
manager

14. The future; still a jig-saw but a pretty picture
Once we get there, what do we need to keep it looking good?

15. How to keep it looking good?
•In‐house knowledge
• Nobody can afford to have a tool that:
• Don't know how it works (conceptually)
• Have to get a consultant to do the simplest things
•Knowledge sharing
●The GN list is good
●But we share an environment, and a shared outcome
●Access to a consultant/contractor
●For any single agency, not full time
●But consultants need to:
●have steady work to keep up‐to‐date
●eat all year round too

16. agriculture.gov.au/abares