This paper derives determining factor for the management of oceanographic data in two ways. 1) The type of oceanographic observation and the raw data which were collected from marine physics, marine chemistry, marine biology, marine geology area were analyzed. 2) The services of the KODC(Korea Oceangraphic Data Center), NFRDI(National Fisheries Research & Development Institute), KHOA(Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Administration) were analyzed to derive metadata elements for retrieval. After analyze, the 42 deciding factor were derived in the 9 areas (general, Observer, satellites, observation instruments, observatories, space, information, projects, and observational data, data processing).