The metadata contain all the key knowledge about the data record (e.g., time of collection, location of collection, unique source and record description identifier, platform identification, etc.), to enable it to be understood by the system and its users. Any data that OOI collects are associated with appropriate metadata. OOI metadata follows the CF 1.6 standard, with additional metadata types and fields specific to OOI as necessary. The metadata can be found in the header of downloaded NetCDF files as well as in the Asset Management tables of the OOINet data portal.