Using template to improve the efficiency of imagery metadata entry

As the internet-based geospatial technology rapidly develops, a tremendous volume of geospatial resources are now available on the web. How to enable users to easily access and use these continuously growing resources has become a critical challenge. Although standardized geospatial metadata is widely considered as an effective method for facilitating the discovery of distributed georesources, the correct generation of metadata has long been a difficult task to the geospatial community. This research provides a solution to improve the efficiency of metadata generation via metadata template. Following the standards of ISO19115 and ISO19115-2, the metadata template for aerial photo produced by the Aerial Survey Office is analyzed and generated. The results shows that 90% of the metadata elements of aerial photos produced in a single project can be included in the template. Meanwhile, the majority of metadata elements not included in the template can be automatically collected from the onboard data or production procedures. This template approach shows advantages for reducing the loading of metadata entry and ensuring the quality of metadata. For organizations that routinely produce geospatial datasets following particular specifications, the advantages of using templates are even more obvious.