MEDIN workshops

Are you visiting our website in order to use marine data? 

If so, would you mind taking a few minutes to answer a questionnaire to assess the flow of marine data in the global economy? 

Click here for the value of marine data survey

 - Your contributions will help inform future ocean policies in the run-up to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030.

MEDIN holds free workshops periodically throughout the year to improve the uptake, knowledge and use of MEDIN Data Guidelines and the MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard (and associated tools). Presentations from MEDIN workshops can be viewed in the archive. 

Workshops will be modular, concentrating the Discovery Metadata Standard in the morning and specific Data Guidelines in the afternoon. This means prospective attendees can choose to attend the full day, or either the morning or afternoon, depending on individual requirements (see schedule for further details).

Dates

MEDIN are pleased to announce the following workshops will be held over the coming year. Places are limited on these workshops so please contact Sean Gaffney, Workshop Co-ordinator. 

Please note that workshops can only run if there are a minimum of five attendees. In order to ensure the widest possible transfer of knowledge from MEDIN to the marine community, MEDIN ask that organisations limit themselves to two attendees per workshop.

Further workshops will be announced throughout 2020. Please check this page for updates or contact Sean Gaffney, Workshop Co-ordinator. 

If the workshop you wish to attend has been fully booked, please contact Sean Gaffney, Workshop Co-ordinator, and supply your preferred workshop location and date. If any spaces become free, MEDIN will add you to the attendees list.

If your organisation has a requirement for a large number of your staff to become familiar with MEDIN Data Guidelines and/or the Discovery Metadata Standard, please get in touch as MEDIN may be able to run tailored workshops.

Feedback from previous workshops

"Highlights importance of data management and organisation, whilst being full of enjoyable practical exercises."

"Practical very useful and clear instructions."

"I had some specific questions which were answered very well and found it a very useful day."

"Information was clear and well presented."

"Very helpful."

"Very good mix, with regular practicals to keep you engaged."

MEDIN workshop

The workshop consists of a series of talks, demonstrations and a large practical element to help users become familiar with:

• MEDIN Data Guidelines

These are guidance from MEDIN on what information should be stored alongside your data to ensure others can use your data with confidence. All data being supplied to a MEDIN Data Archive Centre (DAC) should follow the relevant MEDIN Data Guidelines. Data suppliers are increasingly being asked to use these guidelines as a structure to follow when transferring data to another organisation. Please be aware that Data Guidelines are not instructions from MEDIN on how to collect data.

• The MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard

Discovery metadata is information about your dataset that allows someone else to quickly understand where and when your dataset was collected and what type of data is available. MEDIN provides tools to record this type of metadata and make it computer readable so that your metadata can be "discovered" using internet search portals. The MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard adheres to UK (GEMINI) and European Union (INSPIRE) metadata requirements.

• Controlled vocabularies

These are lists of defined terms that can be used to describe datasets in a consistent way. MEDIN uses them in the Discovery Metadata Standard and in their Data Guidelines.

• Tools to create and validate MEDIN discovery metadata

The workshop gives hands on experience of using several different tools to create MEDIN compliant discovery metadata. These include an online metadata editor, Metadata Maestro and a transformation tool for GIS users.

Workshop schedule

MEDIN Workshop Presentations

If you require any information about previous workshops that aren't available for download please contact MEDIN Enquiries.