Metadata in the Collaboratory for Multi-Scale Chemical Science

Title:

Metadata in the Collaboratory for Multi-Scale Chemical Science. Carmen Pancerella, James D. Myers, Thomas C. Allison, Kaizar Amin, Sandra Bittner, Brett Didier, Michael Frenklach, Jr. William H. Green, Yen-Ling Ho, John Hewson, Wendy Koegler, Carina Lansing, David Leahy, Michael Lee, Renata McCoy, MichaelMinkoff, Sandeep Nijsure, Gregor von Laszewski, David Montoya, Reinhardt Pinzon, William Pitz, Larry Rahn, Branko Ruscic, Karen Schuchardt, Eric Stephan, Al Wagner, Baoshan Wang, Theresa Windus, Lili Xu, and Christine Yang. In 2003 Dublin Core Conference: Supporting Communities of Discourse and Practice-Metadata Research and Applications, Seatle, WA, 28 September – 2 October 2003. (pdf)

Abstract:

The goal of the Collaboratory for the Multi-scale Chemical Sciences (CMCS) is to develop an informatics-based approach to synthesizing multi-scale chemistry information to create knowledge in the chemical sciences. CMCS is using a portal and metadata-aware content store as a base for building a system to support inter-domain knowledge exchange in chemical science. Key aspects of the system include configurable metadata extraction and translation, a core schema for scientific pedigree, and a suite of tools for managing data and metadata and visualizing pedigree relationships between data entries. CMCS metadata is represented using Dublin Core with metadata extensions that are useful to both the chemical science community and the science community in general. CMCS is working with several chemistry groups who are using the system to collaboratively assemble and analyze existing data to derive new chemical knowledge. In this paper we discuss the project’s metadata-related requirements, the relevant software infrastructure, core metadata schema, and tools that use the metadata to enhance science. Keywords: chemistry, metadata, knowledge management, collaboratory, Dublin Core, WebDAV.