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EPOS-DCAT-AP

EPOS-DCAT-AP is a specialized metadata standard integral to the EPOS Open-Source Platform. It is designed to help users organize and make accessible their diverse scientific data and services within the solid-Earth sciences community. By extending the DCAT-AP (Data Catalog Application Profile) specification, EPOS-DCAT-AP provides comprehensive and standardized metadata descriptions, crucial for building a discoverable and interoperable geospatial data catalogue.

What is EPOS-DCAT-AP?​

EPOS-DCAT-AP builds upon the existing DCAT-AP standard, which is a European specification for describing public sector information. It tailors this standard with specific rules and terms relevant to solid-Earth research, enabling a common language for describing diverse resources.

Key characteristics of EPOS-DCAT-AP include:

  • Standardized Description: Provides a common way to describe datasets, software, and services, improving discoverability and interoperability.
  • Solid-Earth Focus: Incorporates specific rules and terms tailored for geophysical and geological data.
  • Interoperability: Designed to facilitate seamless metadata exchange between various systems and organizations.
  • Validation: Includes mechanisms to validate metadata descriptions, ensuring they adhere to the defined rules.

Why EPOS-DCAT-AP?​

For users deploying the EPOS Open-Source Platform, EPOS-DCAT-AP is the crucial common language that allows you to describe your diverse data and service resources in a consistent and standardized way. This consistency enables your EPOS Platform instance to effectively collect, organize, and make sense of all the metadata, facilitating seamless metadata exchange and ensuring that your geospatial data catalogue is discoverable and interoperable.

Key Features for Your Open-Source Deployment​

EPOS-DCAT-AP empowers your open-source EPOS Platform deployment by enhancing standard metadata descriptions with features such as:

  • Extending DCAT-AP: Building on an established standard while adding domain-specific properties relevant to solid-Earth sciences.
  • Enriching Descriptions: Incorporating other descriptive languages to provide richer and more comprehensive metadata for your resources.
  • Supporting Validation: Ensuring metadata quality and compliance through validation tools, helping you maintain a high-quality data catalogue.
  • Facilitating Discovery: Making your diverse scientific resources more easily findable and accessible to your users through a well-structured metadata catalogue.

Official References​

For more detailed information and the complete specification of EPOS-DCAT-AP, please refer to the official documentation:

Current Version (v3)​

Previous Versions & Guidelines​