Progress of the IUGONET system - metadata database for upper atmosphere ground-based observation data

Background The Interuniversity Upper atmosphere Global Observation NETwork (IUGONET) project is a 6-year research project which started in 2009. The objective of this project is to establish a metadata database of various ground-based observation data covering a wide region from the Sun to the Earth; this will encourage more studies on the mechanisms of long-term variations in the upper atmosphere. Findings For archiving purposes, the metadata database system for cross-searching various data distributed across many universities and institute was developed based on the existing repository software called DSpace as the core component and the Space Physics Archive Search and Extract (SPASE) data model as the metadata format. The IUGONET metadata database is still in operation since it was released in March 2012. The system is continuously examined, tested, and updated to improve its quality. The OpenSearch interface in the IUGONET metadata database allows the user to use external applications easily for exchanging metadata and/or for analyzing data. Conclusions We conducted self-examination of our product, which was added for planning future directions of the IUGONET project.