title: Defining linkages between the GSC and NSF's LTER program: how the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) relates to GCDML and other outcomes.
abstract: The Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) invited a representative of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) to its fifth workshop to present the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) metadata standard and its relationship to the Minimum Information about a Genome/Metagenome Sequence (MIGS/MIMS) and its implementation, the Genomic Contextual Data Markup Language (GCDML). The LTER is one of the top National Science Foundation (NSF) programs in biology since 1980, representing diverse ecosystems and creating long-term, interdisciplinary research, synthesis of information, and theory. The adoption of EML as the LTER network standard has been key to build network synthesis architectures based on high-quality standardized metadata. EML is the NSF-recognized metadata standard for LTER, and EML is a criteria used to review the LTER program progress. At the workshop, a potential crosswalk between the GCDML and EML was explored. Also, collaboration between the LTER and GSC developers was proposed to join efforts toward a common metadata cataloging designer's tool. The community adoption success of a metadata standard depends, among other factors, on the tools and trainings developed to use the standard. LTER's experience in embracing EML may help GSC to achieve similar success. A possible collaboration between LTER and GSC to provide training opportunities for GCDML and the associated tools is being explored. Finally, LTER is investigating EML enhancements to better accommodate genomics data, possibly integrating the GCDML schema into EML. All these action items have been accepted by the LTER contingent, and further collaboration between the GSC and LTER is expected.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, LTER Network Office, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA. isangil@lternet.edu
authors.forename: Inigo San
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Gil
authors.forename: Wade
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sheldon
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Servilla
authors.forename: Raul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aguilar
authors.forename: Corinna
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gries
authors.forename: Tanya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.forename: Dawn
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Field
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.forename: Jerry Yun
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Giri
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Palanisamy
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Henshaw
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kinkel
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McMahon
authors.forename: Renzo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kottmann
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Amaral-Zettler
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hobbie
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.forename: Robert P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Guralnick
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brunt
authors.forename: William K
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Michener
mesh_terms: D030541:Databases, Genetic; D016678:Genome; D011381:Programming Languages