[LINK] Australian National Data Service

[Tom Worthington]

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra where Ian
Barnes is giving a presentation on the Australian National Data Service
<http://ands.org.au/> to my e-commerce students. ANDS aims to make the
data behind research in Australia accessible online. The services
provided are both for human readers to search for data and then machine
to machine web services to access the data.

One interesting question is why scientists would share their data. One
reason would be that this will tend to result in the scientist's work
being more widely cited and thus promoting their career. A less obvious
reason is that by making the data available will help ensure the data is
preserved for long term use, including by the original creator. Another
reason is that this may be required by funding bodies to prevent
academic fraud.

Interestingly some of the initial data in the ANDS system is research
data about humpback whales near the location for the proposed north west
multi-billion dollar gas platform.

The service provides a google map interface using the geotagging
information in the metadata. The service uses a different metadata
standard to the ISO19115/19139 standard which is used for some
repositories, but there is provision for converson of the data.

The service has a harvesting process to search registered data sources
to find new collections of data to index. The service uses RIF-CS basd
on ISO2146 to represent data in XML format.

More on this in my blog at:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/08/australian-national-data-service.html>.
-- 
  Tom Worthington FACS HLM
  PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia
  http://www.tomw.net.au