EML stands for Ecological Metadata Language. It exists as a set of XML Schema documents that allow for the structural expression of metadata necessary to document a typical data set in the ecological sciences.

The first two released versions of EML, EML 1.0 and EML 1.4.1 were developed at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), University of California at Santa Barbara, in Santa Barbara, California USA. The effort to produce EML 2.x (and all of the beta releases preceding it) is organized through the EML Project, an open source, community oriented project dedicated to providing a high-quality metadata specification for describing data relevant to the ecological discipline. See similar questions...

eml is an RFC 822 internet standard message format that can be read by Netscape and Microsoft Outlook Express. We recommend Outlook Express or Netscape as a viewer for .eml messages. The advantage that we get out of this is that full fidelity is maintained with rich messages. This is not possible with zip files since these require that the whole be built from the composing elements. Try pasting an entire web page and sending it to get a feel for the power that this approach affords! See similar questions...

Yes, there is a formal specification of EML describing its development history, architecture, and modules. The intent of each module is described in narrative and there is a technical description of each module in XML notation. Included as part of the technical description is an element-by-element description of the module. We will eventually provide examples on usage. See similar questions...

The last decade has witnessed a tremendous explosion of ecological and environmental data, catalyzed by societal concerns and facilitated by advancing technologies. These data have the potential to greatly enhance understanding of the complexity of the biosphere. However, broad-scale or synthetic research is stymied because data are largely unorganized and inaccessible as a consequence of their tremendous heterogeneity, complexity, and spatial dispersion in many separate repositories. See similar questions...

There are several approaches that can be used to convert existing metadata into EML depending on what form your existing metadata take. Case 1: If your metadata is currently in a text format (not stored in a database) use the following conversion methods. Convert the text metadata into XHTML (HTML that is XML compliant). Write an XSLT script to transform the XHTML file into EML compliant XML. See similar questions...

With "id" attributes and "references" elements in each module. Certain modules within EML allow you to identify specific subtrees with a unique identifier (id). This identifier can then be used in place of content in other parts of the EML document by placing it in a "references" element. Our general approach in EML has been to create ComplexTypes (CT) when we wanted a particular block to be reusable. See similar questions...

Yes, there are provisions in the eml-physical module for inclusion of data. The module describes the structural characteristics of data formats as delivered over the wire or as found in a file system. One physical object (which can be a bytestream or an object in a file system) might contain multiple entities (for example, this would be typical in a MS Access file that contained multiple tables of data). See similar questions...

Tools are currently being developed to allow automated heterogeneous data integration, analytical processing and quality testing based on EML metadata. In general, using a metadata standard such as EML will lessen your data entropy and make it more useful to you and others in the future. See similar questions...

No. As of EML 2.0.0 we are no longer creating DTDs as part of the EML release. Only XML Schemas will be released. Even then, there are some EML rules which are not expressible in XML Schema and for which you must use a specialized validator, such as the "EML Parser" that ships with the distribution. See similar questions...

Yes, although we've made every attempt to limit required elements in the cause of flexibility there are a number of pieces of information required to make sense of the metadata document. To make the metadata more useful we do have recommended usages on the modules. See specification for details about required fields and recommended usage. See similar questions...

We welcome contributions to this work in any form. Individuals who invest substantial amounts of time and make valuable contributions to the development and maintenance of EML (in the opinion of current project members) will be invited to become EML project members according to the rules set forth in the ecoinformatics.org Charter. Contributions can take many forms, including the development of the EML schemas, writing documentation, and helping with maintenance, among others. See similar questions...

XSLT can be used to transform EML to other formats, but the treatment of 'references' elements is somewhat complicated. A text file describing the details of one method for handling the 'references' elements is available at http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/eml/eml-2.0.1/references_XSLT.txt See similar questions...

The Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) developed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) is a monolithic standard, and so it is difficult to mix and match parts of it with other standards -- mainly because of all of the spatial requirements. So, we built EML as a series of modules that can be linked together and can be linked to other metadata standards. See similar questions...

In a previous version, EML packages (via RDF like triples) supported linking across packages, so you could re-use the same document in multiple packages. In EML 2.0.0 Release Candidate 1 we redesigned the packaging structure to only allow linking within a single package. Thus, one could re-use a party description or attribute list within a package, but not across several. This is a compromise that keeps some reusability but has fewer management problems. See similar questions...

EML attempts to capture the metadata elements of the Dublin Core in its specification, while still maintaining the flexibility to be able to document the full range of ecological resources. More detailed information on the representation of the Dublin Core elements in EML can be found at http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/eml/eml-2.0.1/eml-dublinCore.html See similar questions...

No. We cannot send individual files. Links to the new additions are in the update notice. Click the link and go to the page of your choice. There you can download the format of your choice. You joined by email. If you want access to the Yahoo/Yahoogroups website, you need to go to www.yahoo.com and obtain a YahooID. Click Sign Up and follow the instructions on the screen and make sure to click Save when you are finished. VERY IMPORTANT!!! See similar questions...