Department of the Interior Metadata Implementation Guide—Framework for Developing the Metadata Component for Data Resource Management
  Raymond Obuch   Raymond C Obuch
Information Technology Specialist - Data Manager
U.S. Geological Survey - Department of Interior
 


 

Wednesday, March 20, 2019
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM

Level:  Intermediate


Department of the Interior Metadata Implementation Guide – Framework for Developing the Metadata Component for Data Resource Management

By Raymond C. Obuch,1 Jennifer Carlino, 4 Lin Zhang, 2 Jonathan Blythe,3 Chris Dietrich,4 and Christine Hawkinson5

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is a Federal agency with over 90,000 employees across ten bureaus and eight agency offices. Data and information are critical in day-to-day operational decision making and scientific research. DOI is committed to creating, documenting, managing, and sharing high-quality data and metadata in and across its various programs. Documenting data with metadata is essential for realizing the value of data as an enterprise asset. The completeness, consistency, and timeliness of metadata affect users' ability to search for and discover the most relevant data for the intended purpose and facilitates the interoperability and usability of these data among DOI bureaus and offices. Fully documented and governed metadata describe data usability, quality, accuracy, provenance, and meaning.

Some of the major content covered:

  • Key roles and responsibilities associated with metadata management
  • Metadata Management Implementation is a phased approach
  • How to institutionalize a governed framework of best practices, methodologies and processes throughout the enterprise

1U.S. Geological Survey

2Department of Interior

3Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

4National Park Service

5Bureau of Land Management

Ray Obuch has been with the USGS Energy Program since 1985 supporting Energy related data and databases that are used in researching and assessing United State and International Oil and Gas Resources.  Ray is a USGS data manager and subject matter expert for Oracle database software and ESRI’s ArcSDE Geodatabase (ArcGIS Server).  Ray has supported the Open Data Initiative (Data.gov) at the DOI Agency Level since 2009 as a USGS representative on the Department of Interiors Data Service Team which supports agency level enterprise data management.  The more recent Open Government Data Act requires that the data used to support government research are made publicly available and managed as an asset.  Metadata is a critical component to the data documentation and subsequent publication process and provides the ability to centrally search, discover, and use data; and sets the stage to begin to manage data as a strategic asset.