Tell me more ×
Geographic Information Systems Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for cartographers, geographers and GIS professionals. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

I have a job interview tomorrow for a summer student position working with GIS. I will be mainly responsible for assisting in the acceptance, storage and dissemination of geographic information, amp datasets,and associated metadata. What are amp datasets? Is it a fancy way of saying data? Also, what would i be expected to know about metadata?

Thanks!

share|improve this question
3  
Could be bad html or other formatting where amp = ampersand. – mkennedy Feb 20 at 0:15
7  
Could also be a typo for "map" which would be relevant for a GIS job. – Fezter Feb 20 at 0:37
1  
You might want to also have a look at this post for some example GIS interview questions. – Fezter Feb 20 at 0:44
1  
I agree with @Fezter that its probably a typo for map - but this is probably better asked on chat - see faq - but it may be that you need more reputation (20 I think) to get on there. – PolyGeo Feb 20 at 1:24

closed as not a real question by PolyGeo, blah238, Mapperz♦ Feb 20 at 3:47

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

Here's the ArcGIS help section on metadata. Read some of this http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/#/What_is_metadata/003t00000001000000/

If you have access to ArcCatalog, you can then take a look at the metadata that is generated by default for a spatial dataset. Highlight a spatial dataset (like a shapefile or layer in fgdb), hit the Description tab, you'll see a description of data and thumbnail. Then go to Customize > ArcCatalog Options > Metadata > Metadata Style, change to use the newer "North American Profile ISO 19115 2003" style, hit okay. Click out of Description tab and back into it, and you'll see a whole bunch of fields for that standard. You could then edit those -- it is likely someone may want you to fill these in with information for your internship.

Behind the scenes, ArcCatalog saves metadata as an XML file when using a shapefile or inserts it as a long XML string into a database (like a layer in a fgdb). XML has a dtd or xsd that validates the structure of the XML (e.g. whether an element is mandatory or can occur multiple times, etc.) ArcCatalog or other tools will use a xsd/dtd to validate the metadata based on the chosen metadata style.

Here's some information on the older FGDC (CSDGM) format (which is still used quite a bit) and the ISO 19115/19115 NAP/19139 -- the ISO ones are essentially the same thing. And they all (including FGDC) use XML for structure and validation. http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/geospatial-metadata-standards

share|improve this answer
1  
A trick to getting the raw metadata XML (without XSL translation) of a geodatabase feature class/table is to create a dummy XML file with the required element <metadata />, and then use the Metadata Importer tool to "import" the geodatabase dataset into the dummy XML file. I use this technique in this arcpy script to inventory geodatabases and scrape their metadata. – blah238 Feb 20 at 1:51

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.