EOSDIS Guide

EOSDIS Guide is a documentation standard developed for users to search and retrieve Guide documents archived in distributed data centers. This documentation standard was established to ensure system-wide consistency in look, feel and functionality, and to ensure correct results in searching Guide documents. The IMS V0 system (including the Guide subsystem) was originally developed as a prototype system for the EOSDIS. Since its inception in 1994, it has evolved into an operational system, and is now the primary gateway to all the EOS era satellite data and Guide documents.

Guide is the documentation standard for the Guide system. Guide standard defines the content, format, and keywords of pieces of documentation, as follows:

1. The content (including headings and subheadings) of the Guide document. The high level headings of the Guide document are:
   1. Data Set Overview
   2. Applications and Derivations
   3. Data Description and Access
   4. Data Characteristics
   5. Usage Guidelines
   6. Acquisition Materials and Methods
   7. References
   8. Glossary and Acronyms
   9. Document Information

   Note - Subheadings for Data Set Overview, for example, include 1) Data Set Content, 2) Related Data Sets, 3) Title of the Investigation, 4) Investigators Name and Title, and 5) Technical Contact(s) Name, Address, Telephone, Fax, and E-mail.

2. The Guide document is written in HTML. In keeping with HTML conventions, the META tag section must appear between the HEAD and TITLE elements. Furthermore, a single TITLE element must be present. Every document must have a document type as well as Dataset and Data_Center elements. The order or sequence of the META tags does not matter. An example of the full suite of the META tags follows:
   • META Name="Document_Type" Content="Dataset DocTypeDS"
   • META Name="Parameter" Content="PRECIPITATION PRECIPITATION_RATE RAIN_RATE"
   • META Name="Source" Content="RADAR_NETWORK NWS_RADAR_NETWORK GROUND_STATION"
   • META Name="Sensor" Content="WSR-88D WSR-57S WSR-74C"
   • META Name="Data_Center" Content="GHRC"
   • META Name="Campaign" Content="FIFE"
   • META Name="Processing_Level" Content="1B"
   • META Name="Dataset" Content="US_COMPOSITE_RAINFALL_DAILY_SUMMARY_FROM_NWS_RADARS US_COMPOSITE_RAINFALL_15MIN_INSTANTANEOUS_FROM_NWS_RADARS"

   Note - The keywords used in the meta tag content fields have to comply with the EDG acceptable valids list for all the search attributes, which include parameter, source, sensor, dataset name, data center, campaign, and processing level.

Detailed information on Guide