THREDDS Workshop Conclusions

• THREDDS should focus on widespread adoption of catalogs.
• The Data Providers present were generally enthusiastic about using catalogs at their sites.
• THREDDS should come to agreement with DODS developers to adopt a common catalog format.
• THREDDS should continue its work on automatic cataloging of ADDE servers.
• A number of important suggestions were made for extending catalog functionality, and further work will be done in the THREDDS mailgroup.
• THREDDS should initially concentrate on metadata standards and discovery rather than data models.
• THREDDS should use existing standards when possible, including Dublin Core, DIF, FGDC, OpenGIS and ISO.
• THREDDS catalogs should provide links to allow optional use of various metadata standards.
• THREDDS should focus on metadata for georeferencing and standardized quantities.
• Data Providers want minimal, flexible metadata; Data Clients want maximal, standardized metadata.
• THREDDS should initially look to DLESE for cataloging educational resources, and to GCMD for dataset search and discovery.
• THREDDS should develop mechanisms for adding and maintaining records in Discovery Centers.
• THREDDS should further develop the idea of catalog servers that allow users to request subsets of a catalog and to request real-time datasets in terms of "time relative to the present."
• THREDDS should develop a "command-line tool" which will provide most of the functionality of the Java client library to non-Java applications.
• Data granularity issues are important, especially to clients, and THREDDS should continue to develop solutions including dataset aggregation, catalog servers, and other middleware services..