Metadata Search

You can search metadata contained in GeoSask in by clicking on the Metadata Search link contained in the 'Discovery' area on the home page.

To begin searching right away do the following:

  • Enter a keyword in the text box to begin your search.
  • Use the search options on this page to further define your search criteria: Where, What, When and Who. You are also given an opportunity on the Metadata Search page to sort the results of your search.
  • While in the Metadata Search page, you may start a new search by clicking the Clear Form button at the bottom of the screen.
  • While in the Metadata Search Results screen, you may begin a new search by clicking the New Search button or refine your search by clicking the Refine Search button.
TIP: The more information you provide in the search fields, the more refined and focused your search results will be.


Where

There are two options you can select from to define your search area when conditioning your search. They are:

  1. Define search area using the Metadata Search nested Map by zooming in, zooming out and/or panning to the desired search extent on the nested map contained within the Metadata Search page. The extent displayed in the nested map will be used as your search area. Below is a description of how each tool works.
    • Zoom In - Move the mouse pointer to the desired location, then click and drag a box around an area of the map. When you release the mouse button, the map viewer zooms in to the selected area.
    • Zoom Out - Click this button to zoom out one level. Continue clicking until you have zoomed out to the desired level.
    • Pan - Click this button, then click and drag the map in any direction. Dragging down lets you see more of the top; dragging left lets you see more of the right, and so on.
  2. Define search area in the Map Viewer by drawing a bounding box on the map within the Map Viewer as follows:
    • On the Metadata Search page, click on Launch Map Viewer to Draw Box. The Map Viewer will launch in its own window with the default base map displayed. Use the zoom and pan tools to move around the map, find an area, and draw a bounding box.
    • Still in the Map Viewer, use the Draw Search Area tool to click and drag a box to define the area in which you want to search.
    • Return to the Metadata Search page without closing the Map Viewer window and press the Get Box already drawn on Viewer button.
Doing the above will allow the Metadata Search page to extract the search area extent from the Map Viewer to be used in your search.


What

You can narrow your search by entering a keyword (or more than one keyword separated by single spaces) in the search box at the top of the Metadata Search page and, if you like, by entering supplemental terms in the 'Data Category' and 'Type/Format' fields in the 'What' box on the Metadata Search page. Additionally, you can specify to use a thesaurus, and what sort of thesaurus terms should be evaluated in relation to the keywords already defined.

  • Specify Keyword - Entering a keyword(s) in the search box limits the search results to those data sets that contain the specified word(s). To search by keyword, type your search word or words in the Keyword text box located at the top of the Metadata Search page. Separate words with single spaces. You can specify the keyword match type by selecting one of the following options provided:
    • Exact Text Search
    • Any Word
    • All Words
    • Use of Thesaurus
  • Specify Data Category - To search for a data set that includes information related to a particular subject or data theme, such as agriculture, climate, petroleum or basemaps, select a theme from the Data Category drop-down menu in the 'What' box. Available data category selections are displayed below:
    • Administrative - Information related to political and administrative boundaries and related non-boundary information.
    • Agriculture - Information related to the rearing of animals and/or cultivation of plants.
    • Base Maps - General base maps and place names.
    • Biota - Flora and/or fauna in natural environments.
    • Cadastre - Data pertaining to interests in real property. Climate - Processes and phenomena of the atmosphere.
    • Cultural - Cultural, historical or archaeological information.
    • Demographics - Population characteristics, agricultural statistics.
    • Economy - Economic activities, conditions and employment.
    • Education - Information pertaining to education.
    • Elevation - Height above or below sea level and associated data.
    • Environment - Environmental resources, protection and conservation.
    • Forestry - Planting and growing trees or managing forests.
    • Geology - Information pertaining to the sciences dealing with the composition, structure and origin of the earth's rocks.
    • Health - Human related information including health services, human ecology and safety.
    • Imagery - Remotely senses imagery and photographic data.
    • Justice - Human services related to social, justice and emergency functions.
    • Land Cover - Description and characteristics of the land's surface.
    • Location - Earth positional information and services.
    • Military - Military bases, structures and activities.
    • Mining - Excavation of minerals from the earth's crust.
    • Oceans - Features and characteristics of salt water bodies.
    • Petroleum - Exploration and production of crude oil and, often, associated natural gas from the earth.
    • Planning - Information derived from, or used in planning and development efforts.
    • Recreation - Recreation and tourism.
    • Soil - Information pertaining to the location, extent and properties of the different soils.
    • Structure - Information related to details of man made structures.
    • Transportation - Means and aids for conveying persons and/or goods.
    • Utilities - Energy, water, waste water and communications infrastructure and services.
    • Water - Inland water features, drainage systems and their characteristics
  • Type/Format - To search for a particular type of content, select one of the following from the type/content drop-down menu in the 'What' box:
    • Data: This category includes live, downloadable, and offline data.
      • Live Data and Maps: Dynamic services that allow direct interaction with map content. They are delivered in one of two ways: as a cartographic image or "snapshot" of a map or as compressed vector features that are streamed to you. Streamed features allow for greater client-side interaction including dynamic labeling, feature symbolization, and map tip creation. You do not need to download anything to use live data--just add it to your map and begin exploring.
      • Downloadable Data: Includes downloadable files containing map features. After the data has been downloaded to your computer, it can be added to your map.
      • Offline Data: This data can be ordered on CD or in some other format. Offline data cannot be downloaded directly to your computer
    • Documents: This category includes map files, static map images, and other documents used in conjunction with geographic data.
      • Map Files: Digital maps that can be readily viewed in a mapping application
      • Static Map Images: These consist of map image files. You cannot directly interact with static map images as you do with live data and maps but you can view them and download them to your own computer
      • Other Documents: Text files, spreadsheets, and other files containing geographic information used in conjunction with geographic data
    • Resources: This category includes clearinghouses, Geographic Information System (GIS) applications, geographic services, and geographic activities.
      • Clearinghouses: Web sites that either provide links to free geographic data or allow you to directly download data.
      • GIS Applications: Custom-built Geographic Information System (GIS) applications served over the Internet, usually with a complete user interface.
      • Geographic Services: Internet services that perform basic geo-processing tasks on map features such as address matching and buffering. Geographic services are sometimes referred to as GIS Web services or GeoServices.
      • Geographic Activities: An event or set of events that is geographic in nature. This includes activities such as land surveys, geographic explorations, GIS conferences, and more. Information about these events can be presented in many forms such as a Web site.
NOTE: As data gets added to GeoSask going forward, these options will become more useful.


  • Specify Thesaurus - By including a thesaurus in your search criteria, you expand your keyword search to a wider array of words. These words can be synonyms, related terms or narrower terms as related to the keywords you specified. For example, a keyword search for "ocean" will only search for metadata documents that have the word "ocean" in them. By including a thesaurus search, documents that have words that are synonyms to "ocean," (i.e., sea), related terms (i.e., lake) or narrower terms (i.e., Atlantic) will also be returned as part of the result set.
    • A thesaurus drop-down list will be visible in the 'What' box of the search criteria. By default, the thesaurus drop-down list option is set to 'No Thesaurus used'. Leaving this drop-down list option, means that thesaurus functionality will not be triggered. To include thesaurus functionality in your search, select a thesaurus from the thesaurus drop-down list. Once a thesaurus is chosen, the 'synonyms' checkbox is selected by default. You can alter the type of thesaurus search you wish to trigger by selecting any combination of the three thesaurus options. You must have at least one thesaurus type defined when using a thesaurus in your search.
    • When thesaurus functionality is triggered with a keyword search, results listed on the search results page will have a 'More Like This' link next to the content title of each result document. Clicking the 'More Like This' link will issue a new query against the Portal repository where:

More like this query = Current search expression OR (morelike_keyword1 OR morelike_keyword2 OR morelike_keyword3), and morelike_keyword{n} are keywords from the metadata document who's 'More Like This' link was clicked.

When

In the 'When' box on the Metadata Search page you can narrow your search by selecting from the following options and typing in information as requested:

  • Anytime - Select the 'Anytime' option for all possible results for your search (as it is conditioned elsewhere on the Metadata Search page).
  • Time Period - Select the Time Period option and enter a particular date or range of dates to narrow your search to a period of original publication. In the 'From' field, enter the starting date. In the 'To' field, enter the end date of your search. Note: Dates must be entered in the yyyy/mm/dd format. For a particular date, enter the same date in the 'From' and 'To' fields.
  • Date Posted - Select the 'Date Posted' option if you want to search for data that has been updated or modified recently. For example, if you want to search for something that was updated two days ago and today is May 21, 2008, type in 20080519 in the provided field.

 

Who

In the 'Who' box on the Metadata Search page you can narrow your search by selecting a Publishing Organization. A pull down menu is provided that lists all organizations publishing to GeoSask. Click twice on the publishing organization you want from the list.

 

Sort

If you do not designate a sort order for your search results, they will appear in date order. You have three additional options on a drop down menu: 'Title', 'Smallest to Largest Area', and 'Largest to Smallest Area'. To select one of these sort options, open the drop down menu and click twice on the desired option.

 

Saving Your Search

You are allowed to save up to 10 separate Metadata Searches for quick reference in the future. To save any search, enter your criteria as described in the 'Where', 'What', 'When' and 'Who' sections above and, before clicking Search, hit the Save button. You must be logged in to be able to save your searches.  In the future, you can view your saved searches on the GeoSask homepage in the 'My Collections' area at the bottom of the page. You can manage your searches by clicking on the 'Manage My Searches' link under 'My Functions' on the left-side of most pages within GeoSask.

Understanding Metadata Search Results

Metadata Results will contain four standard fields for each result returned:

  • Content Title: The name of the product or service the metadata pertains to.
  • Publisher: The organization that provides and maintains the data.
  • Coverage Area: The area of the world the product or service the metadata pertains to covers (i.e. typically this is Saskatchewan).
  • Content Type: The type of product or service the metadata pertains to (eg. Static Map Image, Downloadable Data, Application, Other Document, etc.)
Additionally, several buttons may appear below the metadata record providing access to additional information or services.  The completeness of the metadata determines the appearance of these buttons.

  • View Summary: A summary of the metadata pertaining to the specific product or service appearing in the Metadata Results.
  • View All Metadata: The complete metadata pertaining to the specific product or service appearing in the Metadata Search Results.
  • Open: Allows user to open the application, website, etc. pertaining to the specific product or service appearing in the Metadata Search Results.
  • View Map: A direct link to the Map Viewer from Metadata Search Results.  When clicked, it will open the GeoSask Map Viewer and add the specific service it was accessed from in the Metadata Search Results screen to the map.
  • View Globe: Clicking Depends on the type of software the user has installed.  If the user has an application like ArcGIS Explorer installed, clicking this button will start the application and connect to the service.  If no such application is installed, clicking this button will see the metadata record displayed in a separate browser window - in the same manner as the 'View All Metadata' button.

    NOTE:  While secured services may appear in Metadata Search results, users will not be able to access the service or layer(s) they pertain to without proper authorization.  Inquiries on gaining access to secured services should be directed to the publisher of the data as contained in the Publisher field in the Metadata Search Results.