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Warming up: Specification of metadata

B2FIND is EUDAT's meta data platform. In the course of this tutorial we will show you how to:

  • Install the underlying software
  • Convert metadata to match certain specifications
  • Harvest metadata from 3rd parties
  • Map metadata onto a target schema
  • Validate metadata records for integrity and completeness
  • Upload and index metadata in a discovery portal
  • Search for data collections

In this section we define what metadata is, and specify what kind of information is needed to generate metadata records that can be included in a service like B2FIND.

If you intend to publish your metadata in B2FIND, this part is mandatory reading. In other cases, it is recommended to follow the instructions here to obtain an overview of the procedure. You do not need any further technical knowledge to be able to follow this module.

Spreadsheet template

We provide a template Community-B2FIND.template.xlsx in this repository. Please open it with an appropriate office software.

Specification

In the following, we will guide you through the spreadsheet by following an imaginary use case about fish, called the Fish Project.

0. Instructions

In the first tab, you can find instructions on how to fill in the forms in the next tabs.

1. Generate a spreadsheet file for your use case

Copy the template file into a new file. In the new file name, the phrase Community has to be replaced by the short name of the given community or project, and the extension '.template' should removed.

For example, for our 'Fish Project', we will choose the project name Fish Project and an associated short name (which should consist of only lowercase letters with no spaces) fishproject. Therefore, the spreadsheet should be created as follows:

$ cp Community-B2FIND_template.xlsx fishproject-B2FIND.xlsx

2. Replacements in all sheets

Open the spreadsheet with an appropriate office tool and perform the instructions given in the first table:

  • Replace Community and commShortname with the full name and the short name of your community, respectively. I.e. for our example, in all tabs of fishproject-B2FIND.xlsx:
    • substitute Community with Fish Project and
    • substitute commShortname with fishproject.
  • Replace mdformat with the OAI metadata format used. We use Dublin Core as the OAI metadata format and substitute mdformat with the associated OAI abbrevition, oai_dc.
  • Update the dates 'YYMMDD', and adapt the version (default is V 0.1) in the tab names each time you perform essential changes.

3. Adapt the content of the sheets

3.a. General information

This should be filled out by representatives of the community. Part of this information will be used in the introducing the community or project in the CKAN (or B2FIND) portal.

Open the General Information tab and provide the required information. Below is the information for our Fish Project:

Name Value Comments
Contact Persons Your name(s) and email(s) The indivivual(s) that can be contacted by the B2FIND team
Community Shortname fishproject The community name used in the B2FIND code and GUI
Community Longname Fish Project The community name used in the description of the community
Community Description The great repository for research about fish, chips. ... Text used in the B2FIND portal in the description of the community
Community Homepage N/A This is set as a link in the Community Description
Community Logo https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a2/42/e3/a242e361d6cc5883f6f5304ccea90c97.jpg This logo is used in the B2FIND portal
Community Portal N/A This is the data portal maintained by the community or project

3.b. Harvesting:

This section corresponds to the Data Provider module. Filling in this secion is compulsory only if you intend to publish your metadata on EUDAT-B2FIND.

Open the Harvesting (YYMMDD) tab. As a community that wants to offer its metadata to B2FIND via an OAI-PMH endpoint, you must provide information on

  • the OAI endpoint(s),
  • (optional) the subsets of your metadata that need to be harvested, and
  • the metadata format and schema of the provided records.

The B2FND team will complete this information with the status and frequency of harvesting. Once you have configured a Data Provider by following the relevant section of this training, you can insert the specifications of your test OAI-PMH server here.

3.c. Metadata Specification

While these fields are not required, we highly recommend filling them out for a more complete overview.

Open the Metadata Specification tab and provide the information as far as known and available. This information is more complex than the previous sections and needs to be discussed and answered separately per subject.

We do not follow this in detail in this tutorial, but it is a good excercise to answer the questions for the Fish Project.

3.d. Mapping :

This corresponds to the modules 03.a Mapping of Metadata and 03.a Validating of Metadata, and can only be completed after finishing these sections of the training.

Open the tab Mapping (YYMMDD).

For integration in B2FIND, the first draft is filled out by the B2FIND team and then it will be iteratively updated and discussed with the representatives of the community.