Help Page

General comment

your data or information centre probably provides various online services and products. Please enter a new record for each of the services and products so users will be able to search and find them easily. Do not enter 1 record like http://www.nodc.be but TODO

When you enter a new record you will “own” that record i.e. you will be the only person who can later edit that record.

  • The first time you enter a new record you will need to identify yourself. For this you need to use your OceanExpert (https://www.oceanexpert.org) UserID and Password. If you do not yet have a record in OceanExpert then go to https://oceanexpert.org/register/ . Once your record is validated you can then login to the ODIS Catalogue site.
  • Click on “add” in the top menu. You will now see 3 tabs: “Submitter info”, “Basic description” and “Detailed description”.
  • Click on “Submitter info”. You will see your name and OceanExpert unique identity number.
    • What is the role of the submitter, select from the picklist (eg IODE NODC, FAO, UNEP).
  • Click on “Basic description”.
    Enter information for each field with * (mandatory fields) and fill other fields if possible.
    • URL of where we can find the datasource
      Starts with http:// or https://
    • URL of the parent project
      If your service or product is a deliverable of a project then enter the URL of that project.
      Starts with http:// or https://
    • Startpoint URL for ODIS-Arch
      An URL that ODIS-Arch can use to get information.
      Starts with http:// or https://
    • Type of startpoint of the URL for ODIS-Arch
      The type of startpoint the URL uses.
    • End date of the (parent) project
      Enter the ending date (year/month/day) of the project if there is one.
      This will enable us to contact you prior to the end date of the project to find out what will happen with the service after the end date.
    • English name
      Enter the title of the service/product in English.
    • Original name
      Enter the non-English title of the service/product.
      Leave blanco if there is no non-English name.
    • Acronym
      Acronym of the service or product (eg OceanDocs, ODIS, ...).
    • Abstract
      Provide an abstract that describes the service or product as detailed as possible (in English).
    • Citation
      Provide the citation of the service or product as other users should refer to it.
    • Email of source’s technical contact
      Enter the email address of the technical person responsible for the service or product.
    • Languages of the source’s interface
      Click on one or more languages to describe the languages used in the user interface of the service or product.
    • Countries owning the source
      Enter the country/countries which should be considered as the “resource owner”.
      This will enable us to display a list of resources provided by your country. In many cases this will be the same country as that in which the submitter/owner works.
  • Click on “Detailed description”
    • Institution
      Select the main institution that hosts the source of this record. These institutions come are retrieved from OceanExpert.
    • Technical notes
      Enter anything technical that is important for users to know in addition to the already provided information.
      This may also include the contact name.
    • Countries contributing to the source
      If an activity that produces the service or product involves one or more countries then select the countries here.
      If the service or product is the result of global collaboration then select “GLOBAL”.
      If the service or product is the result of regional collaboration then select “REGIONAL” and specify the region in "Spatial Coverage".
    • Spatial coverage
      Enter coordinates of the focus area of your resource.
      If you selected "REGIONAL" for the previous field, you can add region(s) here.
    • Sea regions
      Select all sea regions relevant to your service or product.
    • Data policy
      What data policy applies to your service or product. If you are not sure then select “unknown”.
    • Metadata standard
      Select the metadata standard used by your service or product (if applicable). You can also select “Other” and then provide details or you can select “not applicable”.
    • Keywords
      You can either select keywords from the existing list or select "Other" to add your own.
    • Themes
      Select the high level thematic areas that are applicable to your service or product. You can also select “no theme defined”.
    • DOIs
      Enter or select one or more DOI(s) for your service or product if any exist.
    • Types
      Enter the “resource types” that apply to your service or product.
      This will be very helpful to users to filter out bibliographic databases, software, observational databases, etc.
    • Machine to machine interaction technologies
      Select one or more technologies that can be used by another machine to interact with your product or service.
      If the technology used is not in the list then you can add it. If you do not know then select “Do not know”.
      This will enable us to proceed with the next step of ODIS which is the linking and/or harvesting of online resources to provide central services for discovery. But it will also allow users to identify technologies to link to your service or product.
    • Contributing to
      Select the projects or systems to which your service or product contributes (eg sea level observations are submitted to GLOSS).
    • Obtained from
      Select the projects or systems from which your service or product obtains data.
  • Click on "SAVE"
    This will save the information you have entered. The response screen will show the details and the ID of the record in ODIS Catatogue.
If you need to enter multiple records for your centre then a number of fields may be identical. To avoid having to enter this information repeatedly you can use the “duplicate” function ( click the 2 pages icon ). This will duplicate all fields except URL, English name and original name.
Once you have entered your records you can also edit them. After opening the ODIS web site click on “Login” at the top right and enter your OceanExpert (https://www.oceanexpert.org) OceanExpert userID and password. You will be redirected to the search page and see a list of records that you entered. If you want to see the content of a record then click on the “eye” icon. If you hover over the icon you will see “view”. To edit the record click on the “pencil” icon. You can find this icon in the list of records or in the record display screen. After editing your record make sure to click on “save”.

To search for information in the ODIS Catalogie click on “search” in the top menu. First you will see the page “Search Page”. It has a number of “filters” on the left, a “free text search” box on the right and below it you will see the results or your search. When you log in you will be redirected to this place and see your records. Clicking on the "search" in the menu will show you the last 10 edited or entered records. recently.

How to search with text?

How to see all records?

  • deselect all filters
  • remove all search words
  • click on the search button

Grouping words.

Typing multiple words will show all the results where any of the words matches!
Use double quotes (") to group words and narrow down the results:

  • searching for ocean atlas will give you all the results for ocean AND all the results for atlas
    • I made an atlas to use at school.
      • will match once for atlas
    • I love the ocean.
      • will match once for ocean
    • I made an atlas that is not containing the ocean.
      • will match once for atlas
      • will match a second time for ocean
    • I made a new ocean atlas.
      • will match once for atlas
      • will match a second time for ocean
  • searching for "ocean atlas" will only give you the results for the 2 adjacent words ocean and atlas
    • I made an atlas to use at school.
      • will NOT match, ocean atlas not found
    • I love the ocean.
      • will NOT match, ocean atlas not found
    • I made an atlas that is not containing the ocean.
      • will NOT match, the 2 adjacent words ocean atlas not found
    • I made a new ocean atlas.
      • will match once, the 2 adjacent words ocean atlas found once

How to use wildcards?

Wildcards '?' (single character) and '*' (multiple characters) are accepted.

  • bird will only match the word 'bird'
  • bir? will match the words 'bir' and 'bird'
  • bir* will match the words 'bir', 'bird' and 'birds'
  • *bird* will match the words 'bird', 'birds', 'seabird' and 'seabirds'

How to use the filters?
you can search with or without filters, filters are here to narrow down your search results using predefined lists

using filters

  • multiple selects within one filter will be used as OR statements
    examples:
    • selecting both Belgium and France will show all records where Belgium has been selected and all records where France has been selected
  • different filters will be used with AND statement in search
    examples:
    • selecting both Belgium as country and French as language will show all records where Belgium has been selected as country and where French has been selected as language
  • all combination are possible examples:
    • selecting both Belgium and France as country and French and Dutch as language will show all records where Belgium has been selected as country and where French or Dutch has been selected as language and all records where France has been selected as country and where French or Dutch has been selected as language

without filters

when searching without filters the different words will be searched in all fields that are not a filter examples:
  • selecting Belgium as country without the use of a searchword or selecting no country in the filters and using Belgium as a searchword will give two different results.

special filters

clicking on the button My Records will show only your records

ODIS Catalogue provides an API for accessing record data programmatically. Currently, the following endpoint is available:

ODIS-Arch Records

GET /odis-arch-records

This endpoint returns a JSON list of all records that contain ODIS-Arch information. Each entry includes:

  • id: The internal ODIS record identifier.
  • ds_name_english: The English name of the data source.
  • ds_url: The URL of the data source.
  • odis_arch_url: The startpoint URL for ODIS-Arch.
  • odis_arch_type: The type of ODIS-Arch startpoint.
Example JSON response:
[
  {
    "id": 123,
    "ds_name_english": "Example Data Source",
    "ds_url": "http://example.com",
    "odis_arch_url": "http://example.com/odis-arch",
    "odis_arch_type": "Sitemap"
  },
  ...
]