Help:How to add resource metadata on the Wiki

Part of the task of Key to Nature is to improve the searchability and accessibility of identification tools and related media resources. To do this, you can provide information (called "metadata", such as author, copyright, or keywords) for both externally stored resources as well as for resources present on the Wiki itself.

1 Put it on Your page!

This is a service to you and we try to give you as much freedom as possible. The pages you create are yours and you can format and design them to suit your taste (within the limitation imposed by the Wiki). We are requesting a form-like structure (the organization infobox or metadata "template") but this may be placed at the very bottom of the page. On the rest of the page you may add text, tables, or images describing your organization or identification resources (including, e. g., screen shots of tools).

2 Requested actions

Each person or organisation ("data provider") must be represented by a wiki page, containing any free-form text and images, plus a required "Organisation infobox" template call containing a short name, logo and web-address ("homepage"/URI). Similarly, for each resource collection, another page must be created, containing any free-form text and images, plus a required template call "Metadata" containing important metadata about the resource collection. In detail:

1. Create one page for yourself or your organisation as a data provider. Note: We do not use the normal "Metadata" template, but a completely separate "Infobox Organisation" template which is largely identical to the one used in the English Wikipedia. Please follow the example of existing provider pages: See Provider Pages for examples. Go into the edit mode of a page that suits you (e.g., some pages are bilingual), copy the text inside the text box to the clipboard, and paste it into a new page for your own organisation and modify it there. At the bottom of the provider page the line "[[Category: Resource Metadata Provider]]" should be placed.

2. Create separate pages for each resource collection. Individual resource metadata may be placed either on the collection page directly, or on any number of separate pages (including one page per resource where this is meaningful). To create such pages it is best to work by example: see Metadata Collections. The collection page must contain a "Metadata" template call with "| Type = Collection" and the metadata about the collection. If this is present, the page is automatically added to the Category: Resource Metadata Collection by the "Metadata" template.

3. For each identification key or media resource, add further information in a "Metadata" template call. In editing mode these template calls start and end with double braces ("{{...}}") between which each parametername/parametervalue pair is added in the form "| parametername = parametervalue", e.g. "| Language = en". The name of the template is "Infobox Organisation" for data providers and "Metadata" for collections and individual resources. While these structures are bothersome to type from scratch,when copying a good example, changing the relevant lines is not very complicated.

3 Page naming guidelines

Organisation: Please prefer a fully spelled-out name over abbreviations when you create a page for your organization. Abbreviations of different organization are in much greater danger of creating conflicts, i.e. different organisations in different countries use the same abbreviations. Whether you use the name in your local language or in English is your decision.

Tip for advanced users: You can create pages in both names (as well as creating pages for the abbreviation) and add a redirect such as "#redirect [[YourPrimaryName]]" as the sole content of the secondary page. Opening the secondary page will then automatically forward users to the primary page.

Resource collections: The general rule is to use the title of the collection and add the abbreviation of your organization in brackets. This is not necessary if an organization or provider name is already part of the collection title (as in "Dryades Image Archives"). Again, the choice of supported languages in the title is yours.

Individual resources: use a globally distinguishing name, considering that others may provide related resources later on. Do not name your page "Key to shrubs and trees" if you have a key to the shrubs and trees of Southern France. Using precise names will reduce the likelihood that your page has to be renamed later one.

4 Submission methods

1. If you have only a few resources, we suggest that you manually create wiki pages that follow the page naming guidelines above, and use the "modification of examples" described below. See Create a page for further information how to create new wiki pages in general.
2. If you have many resources (e. g., an image collection with more than a few dozen images) you will probably want to use some semi-manual or fully automatic methods of submission, see "Submission of large volumes of metadata" below.

4.1 Manually create a few metadata records by modification of examples

If you want to inform on one or two identification keys, the easiest method is to select a good example and modify it. Choose a good example similar to your own purpose, go into edit mode, copy the content of the edit window into the clipboard, go to your new page and paste it there into the edit window. Then revise and adapt the text to suit your needs.

• For a data provider page you could take a look at: Natural History Museum (London) (with additional images and a large icon in the infobox in the upper right corner), or the University of Trieste (with several headings for departments).
• For a small collection of identification keys, you could look at Identification_Keys_(NHM)
• For a small media collection with just the collection and resource metadata records you could look at Estonian lichen images (TU-pics).

(Please add to this list if you find good examples that may help others.)

4.2 Submission of large volumes of metadata

If you have many - perhaps just more than 20 - resources, direct manual submission of individual resources becomes labor intensive. The submission process can then be improved with respect to data preparation and data submission.

Metadata preparation

If you already have data in database tables or spreadsheets, they can be automatically or semi-manually converted to a supported syntax. This is discussed under Help: Converting data to wiki template syntax.

The most laborious task is probably matching your field names to the fields defined in the metadata exchange agreements (which defines collections, identification keys, and media resources). The normative document for this is Resource Metadata Exchange Agreement, containing a long list of fields with short definitions. You might also want to look at the technical page: Template:Metadata which defines the rendering of those metadata records placed directly in Wiki pages. Except for the URIs, the template gives you a fair overview over available fields.

Both the Resource Metadata Exchange Agreement are somewhat difficult to consume. The agreement tries to cover many options that are desirable when your have such detailed information. However, in many cases limiting yourself to only relatively few fields is already satisfactory. We suggest you try to create a first export limited to the fields mentioned below (WRITE US IF SOME IMPORTANT FIELD SHOULD BE MISSING BELOW... - this is yet a draft of the help page). Only after doing so, go quickly through the entire field list in Resource Metadata Exchange Agreement to decide whether you want to add something.

Ideally over time we want to develop more focussed guides for specific purposes. For the moment we provide some guidance here:

1. The obvious fields: Type, Title, Description, Language of the item (most images are language-neutral which is "zxx").
2. Keywords and related: Please make an effort to provide the Subject Category. This is easy if it is constant for all images. For example, use "Tracheophyta" if all images are about some vascular plants. Furthermore, if some of your keywords are known to be geographic or taxonomic, please map your information to appropriate fields (World Region, Country Names, Country Codes; Taxonomic Coverage, Scientific Names, Common Names, etc.). Everything that can not be placed into a narrower category (especially if your source data make no such distinctions) goes into General Keywords.
3. In your own interest, give a complete Copyright Statement (including the copyright symbol, if desired by you). Please provide a License Statement in the interest of users searching for media to illustrate species pages and identification keys. Further attribution and ownership information is optional.
4. Links and identifiers: Please make an effort to provide a stable "Resource ID" (unique at least within collection, remaining unchanged when you update your data. Furthermore, always give a Best Quality URI and the associated Best Quality Availability. If the best quality is offline, also give a URI and Availability for Good, Medium, or Lower Quality. If you have thumbnails online, please provide URI and Availability (Normal Preview, Tiny Preview).

AT PRESENT, THE TEXT ABOVE NEEDS CHECKING AND VERIFICATION

In addition to the standard wiki syntax we later plan to support simple xml or rdf formats. Please contact us if you need one of these methods.

Data submission options

• For a small amount of metadata records (= "{{Metadata ...}}"), simply use the clipboard to copy the prepared metadata from the spreadsheet or word processor and paste it into the editing window of a wiki page.

• However, the length of a single wiki page is nominally limited to about 2-4 MB. Furthermore, very large wiki pages open and store very slowly. Large amounts of metdata are therefore recommended to be stored in unicode-based plain text files that are then uploaded to the wiki. See Help: Upload resource metadata as a file for detailed instructions.

• We currently do not have a form-based editor yet; we do plan to add this, however. When you save metadata embedded in a wiki page, the template will give you some feedback on the quality of your data.

5 Advanced topics

Metadata information not covered in the examples: If you want to express something more than the examples provide you with, chances are that additional metadata fields are already available to suit your purposes. An overview can be obtained when viewing the "Metadata" template itself and the complete list of fields is available in the Resource Metadata Exchange Agreement. We realize that reading the entire Resource Metadata Exchange Agreement is asking too much for small contributions and therefore hope that you are best served by following the examples. In case of difficulties, please contact us, we can gladly help you finding appropriate fields.

Automatic updating (expert topic): If you have the necessary programming skills, both submission methods (wiki page or wiki file upload) can be automated, i.e. a software program or script can automatically collect databases in regular intervals from your databases, convert them into the exchange format, and save or upload them to the repository wiki.

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Please leave questions on the talk page of the main metadata manager.