Geospatial Metadata Tool

The following application has been tested and is certified for use on ITS workstations running ArcGIS 8.3, 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2. The application is available through Team Services Website under the Supplemental Applications and Instructions library.

The Service Center Geospatial Data Management Team (GDMT) began developing a geospatial metadata standard in 1999. The standard establishes the minimum mandatory metadata elements that must be collected for all geospatial datasets created or distributed by the service center agencies. The document defines two levels of metadata required for geospatial metadata. The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) full compliance metadata are required for all national geospatial datasets, primarily those datasets created by the service center agencies to support national programs.

A paired-down version of the metadata, referred to as Service Center Initiative (SCI) minimum compliance metadata, is required for locally derived datasets and to support the aggregation of county and state datasets into national layers.

A number of tools are available for creating and maintaining FGDC full compliance metadata. The agencies have used text editors and word processing software for several years. The GIS enterprise licensing agreement with the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) provides ArcCatalog for this purpose.

The Geospatial Metadata Team, sponsored by the GDMT, has worked with ESRI to develop the USDA Metadata Tool for creating SCI minimum compliance metadata. This tool, along with PowerPoint slides, is available for downloading.

These documents require Adobe Acrobat.

USDA Metadata Documents

Document Name	Format	File Size	Last Updated
SCA Metadata Policy		52 KB	October 15, 2003
USDA Metadata Tool User Manual		785 KB	October 18, 2007

*Warning: The USDA metadata tool is an ArcObjects application. The ArcGIS software will only permit one ArcObjects application to run at a time. Conflicts with FSA's CLU maintenance tool also developed using ArcObjects have been reported. Until this issue is resolved, do not attempt to use the metadata tool with other ArcObjects applications.

The 8.3 version of the metadata tool must be removed before upgrading from ArcGIS 8.3 to ArcGIS 9.x. The 8.3 version of the metadata tool loses functionality when used with ArcGIS 9.x. If the 8.3 version of the metadata tool is not removed before upgrading to ArcGIS 9.x, the metadata tool cannot be removed using the Windows Control Panel software remove/uninstall utility. The removal utility expects ArcGIS 8.3 to be resident on the PC. Rather than uninstalling ArcGIS 9.x and reloading ArcGIS 8.3 to remove the old version of the metadata tool, the technology staff in Fort Collins developed two small scripts to solve this problem. Please contact Larry Davis for these scripts.

ArcGIS 8.3 users must continue using the 8.3 version of the metadata tool. The 9.x version of the tool will not work with ArcGIS 8.3. A Request for Change (RFC) has been submitted to make the new tool universally available when the ArcGIS 9.1 software is loaded to everyone's desktop.