ECAI Reference and Documentation

Title: ECAI Metadata Clearinghouse Description Author: Ian Johnson Publisher: University of Sydney, Australia Year written or copyrighted: 1999 Contributed by: Ian Johnson, ECAI Description: First of all, the clearinghouse is intended to provide a one-stop shop for historical and cultural data of substance. It does this, not by collecting and storing data or indexing everything that exists, but by maintaining a controlled catalogue of on-line data held by other agencies or individuals, and enforcing data documentation standards through metadata. While individuals can register their datasets freely with the clearinghouse through a web browser interface, ECAI editorial control intervenes to filter out inappropriate datasets and ensure that registered datasets are adequately described by descriptive metadata (based on the Dublin Core metadata standard) to allow consistent searching. Secondly, the clearinghouse stores metadata which allow suitable software - notably the TimeMap interface software - to search for, connect to and drill down into the data for a particular on-line dataset, applying queries and displaying results in map-based or text-based form. In other words, the clearinghouse enables direct access to the content of varied on-line datasets through a consistent interface - and simultaneous display of data from several sources - rather than merely a pointer to their location and a unique interface for each one. URL: www.timemap.net/showcase/clearinghouse.html