Milestone - Define EnvO value sets for supported environmental packages (3.2)

[ssarrafan]

A key part of the schema is the allocation of different metadata elements to different environmental packages (e.g., ‘depth’ is a required metadata element for soil and sediment samples, and conversely ‘altitude’ is required for aerial samples). In the Pilot, we directly adopted the MIxS environment packages, and extended them with fields required by EMSL and JGI. While this provided a foundation, we identified many areas where the MIxS environmental packages are too rigid, or are at suboptimal levels of granularity. In collaboration with the GSC and the broader research community, we will support the development of more specific packages for a variety of ecosystems (e.g., environments like wetlands, mangroves or complex riparian systems should have their own package extensions, and the schema allows for progressive refinement or crossing of packages), and continue to improve existing packages based on community feedback. To address a common community challenge in navigating ontologies, each of these environmental packages will be supported by defined EnvO value sets (cross-sections of the ontology with key terms relevant for a specific environment) such that data submitters can provide precise and accurate descriptive terms through a simple dropdown, without having to navigate the whole EnvO structure (Submission Portal, Milestone 3.2).

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[ssarrafan]

Duplicate. Only for Q4. Closing and removing from board.