Improve the EMLassemblyline metadata generation tool

[clnsmth]

A challenge I’m confronted with is development of a metadata generation tool that is user friendly, robust, and meets metadata content best practices. The EMLassemblyline R code package helps the average data provider create metadata in the Ecological Metadata Language (EML; a metadata standard developed and maintained by the ecological community), but needs development. Users supply their data and a set of completed metadata templates, and EMLassemblyline automatically extracts additional metadata from the data entities and translates templates into an EML record. Benefits of the EMLassemblyline include:

• Good operational documentation.
• Auto detection of metadata content from data entities.
• Minimal R experience required. Users supply metadata in text files and tables.
• Completed templates simplify revisioning of a metadata record.
• Supports autonomous data processing and publication workflows.

Issues in need of solutions (see project issue tracker for details):

• New user friendly front ends (Shiny, R Notebook)
• Support for spatialVector and spatialRaster data types.
• Provenance tracking of source datasets.
• Validation checks on user inputs and good error messages when unexpected inputs are found.
• Additional automated detection of metadata content from data entities.