Controlled Vocabulary
In data management, one of the important elements to have is the use of controlled vocabulary or a standard terminology. Adopting an internationally recognized approach is essential as this will make sure that data will be identifiable, understood, discovered and accessed by users or by information systems. As a consequence, using variable names and data dictionaries used by the international community will prevent confusion.
Here are examples of standard terminology resources that are used by BMDC:
ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)) provides reference codes for oceanographic data, as well as codes for sampling platforms.
BODC (British Oceanographic Data Center) which is part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is UK's national oceanographic data center and offers standard terminology in a wide range of topics. It is part of the Seadatanet network, a marine European data management infrastructure.
Data Standards
Standards are common rules, conditions or guidelines and are essential to enable easy discovery and re-use of data. BMDC uses and promotes controlled vocabularies and standardised field names. By doing this, (meta)data are described in a consistent way for every type of marine data.
Controlled vocabularies for the marine sector:
SeaDataNet client to NERC vocabulary server
SeaDataNet hierarchical search by data theme