IVOA recommendation: IVOA DataLink

TL;DR

This IVOA recommendation specifies how to link data discovery metadata with data access, detailed metadata, related resources, and services, enabling detailed dataset exploration and service description within the Virtual Observatory framework.

Contribution

It introduces a standardized method for linking metadata to data, resources, and services, enhancing data discovery and interoperability in astronomical data systems.

Findings

Supports drill-down into dataset details

Provides a method for describing services and inputs

Enables inclusion of service descriptors in result documents

Abstract

This document describes the linking of data discovery metadata to access to the data itself, further detailed metadata, related resources, and to services that perform operations on the data. The web service capability supports a drill-down into the details of a specific dataset and provides a set of links to the dataset file(s) and related resources. This specification also includes a VOTable-specific method of providing descriptions of one or more services and their input(s), usually using parameter values from elsewhere in the VOTable document. Providers are able to describe services that are relevant to the records (usually datasets with identifiers) by including service descriptors in a result document.