The Mediation Layer provides community-agnostic functionality for creating high-quality data products. It includes tools for managing metadata, transforming data from a technical data model into a semantic model, and improving data quality.
Zooming into the Mediation Layer
Semantic Web
Terminologies are structured knowledge bases that provide a common language for describing data products and their relationships. They help ensure that different datasets can be understood and integrated properly. Using domain-specific terminologies enable semantic interoperability, which means different systems and datasets can communicate and exchange information with a shared understanding of the data's meaning. This is particularly important in heterogeneous environments and when integrating data from various sources. A key component of the RDC Mediation Layer is our terminology repository and service called BiodivPortal, a repository supporting the management, sharing and use of biodiversity related terminologies. BiodivPortal provides a centralized storage for terminologies and offers various functionalities for their managment through both its user interface and its API. Other components of the RDC can perform semantic enrichment by directly accessing and integrating terminologies or by reusing the set offered semantic services.
(Meta)datata Standards
Establishing standardized data formats and metadata is a fundamental step to ensure that data shared within the RDC are structured in a consistent and understandable manner. Commonly used data standards in research data commons include data exchange formats like JSON, metadata and data standards. Our goal is to build services based on well-established, internationally agreed semantic standards spaning both data and metadata. More and more metadata standards are being offered in a Semantic Web compliant format as ontologies. We identified an initial subset of semantic core models, namely: Schema.org and ABCD3. We stored and published their corresponding ontologies on BiodivPortal. Additional standards for data are being collected and similarly stored, like for instance the Ecological Trait-data Standard (ETS).
(Meta)data Transformation
The mediation layer provides a set of transformation services and tools for data and metadata. Harmonizing metadata is critical for ensuring that different datasets can be effectively integrated. This involves mapping metadata elements from diverse sources to an agreed upon common schema. Tools for data transformation and conversion are needed to convert (meta)data from one format to another or to a common shared format, ensuring that data from various sources can be combined together. These tools may be domain-specific or general-purpose. In order to meet wider user needs, we developed the data collection service, that supports the conversion and storage of datasets into JSON, an easy-to-consume format. We are developing a tranformation pipeline for source metadata schemas and data formats into a semantic format based on the identified semantic core models and data standards.
Our Goals
Translation of the physical data model into domain models and vice versaSupport of common metadata standards
Example Components
Perspectives
Data Integration
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Curation and Harmonisation
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