[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 87 (Friday, May 7, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Page 24591]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-09674]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; NOAA Geospatial Metadata

    The Department of Commerce will submit the following information 
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for 
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the 
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and 
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of 
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's 
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the 
Federal Register on January 29, 2021 (86 FR 7541) during a 60-day 
comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public 
comments.
    Agency: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 
Commerce.
    Title: NOAA Geospatial Metadata tools.
    OMB Control Number: 0648-0024.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Request: Regular submission, revision and extension of a 
current information collection.
    Number of Respondents: 1,430.
    Average Hours per Response: 1.75.
    Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,590.
    Needs and Uses: This request is for revision and extension of a 
currently approved information collection. The National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collects, generates, retains, and 
redistributes geospatial metadata in a wide array of data formats 
covering diverse aspects of earth, biological, and space sciences. To 
fully understand and reuse these data over the course of many years, 
NOAA provides several metadata documentation tools for various 
communities of users to enable them to easily create complete, 
standards-based descriptive information about geospatial data. The 
following tools, in use or planned for use by NOAA Program offices, are 
authorized to collect geospatial metadata consistent with Executive 
Order 12906, NOAA Administrative Order 212-15, and the 2013 Office of 
Science and Technology Policy Memorandum `Public Access to Research 
Results'. Geospatial metadata collected by the listed tools are 
`voluntary' but the ability for data documented by relevant geospatial 
metadata is significantly degraded if metadata are incomplete, 
inaccurate or otherwise less than the information collection tool 
supports.
    National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service 
(NESDIS): Send2NCEI web application (currently approved as OMB Control 
Number: 0648-0024).
    National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service: 
Advanced Tracking and Resource tool for Archive Collections (ATRAC) web 
application.
    National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service: 
Collection Metadata Editing Tool (CoMET) web application.
    National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS): InPort metadata authoring 
tool.
    Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR): Science Data 
Information System (SDIS) metadata and data submission tool.
    Collecting geospatial metadata is necessary to fully understand, 
use, and reuse geospatial data since the metadata provides contextual 
information about data formats, bounding areas, use and access 
limitations (if any). Geospatial metadata from this information 
collection also supports multiple search and discovery catalog 
services, such as data.gov, NASA Global Change Master Directory (GCMD), 
and many others.
    Information will be collected from data producers (primarily 
university, private industry, and government-funded scientific 
researchers) in multiple fields of geosciences, biological and 
atmospheric sciences, and socio-economic sciences. Geospatial metadata 
typically includes descriptive information about specific observed, 
calculated, or modelled data (e.g., title, abstract, purpose statement, 
descriptive discovery keywords), characteristics of the described data 
(e.g., date and spatial range of data collection activities, data 
processing steps, collected/measured variables and units of measure for 
those variables) and administrative information (e.g., who collected or 
created data and metadata, how to cite data when used in scientific 
analyses). Information collected by the listed tools is used to inform 
the appropriate use of data described by related geospatial metadata.
    The existing OMB control number is expanded to include other 
information collection instruments that collect similar kinds of 
geospatial metadata but that have different community-based practices 
or standards that provide for more or less details in the metadata 
requested. Additionally, the title of the collection is being changed 
from National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Send2NCEI 
Web Application to NOAA Geospatial Metadata to reflect the information 
being collected.
    Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations; Not-
for-profit institutions; State, Local, or Tribal government; Federal 
government.
    Frequency: As needed for geospatial data documentation purposes.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: Executive Order 12906 and the 2013 Office of 
Science and Technology Policy Memorandum `Public Access to Research 
Results'.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view the Department of 
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of 
this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently 
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search 
function and entering either the title of the collection or the OMB 
Control Number 0648-0024.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2021-09674 Filed 5-6-21; 8:45 am]
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