The worldwide Sensor Web comprises observation data from diverse sources.
Each data provider may process and assess datasets differently before making them available
online. This information is often invisible to end users. Therefore, publishing observation
data with quality descriptions is vital as it helps users to assess the suitability of data
for their applications. It is also important to capture contextual information concerning
data quality such as provenance to trace back incorrect data to its origins. In the Open
Geospatial Consortium (OGC)’s Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework, there is no
sufficiently and practically applicable approach how these aspects can be systematically
represented and made accessible. This paper presents Q-SOS—an extension of the OGC’s
Sensor Observation Service (SOS) that supports retrieval of observation data together with
quality descriptions. These descriptions are represented in an observation data model
covering various aspects of data quality assessment. The service and the data model
have been developed based on open standards and open source tools, and are productively
being used to share observation data from the TERENO observatory infrastructure. We
discuss the advantages of deploying the presented solutions from data provider and
consumer viewpoints. Enhancements applied to the related open-source developments are
also introduced.