NDLTD - Interoperability Metadata Standard for Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Interoperability Metadata Standard for Electronic Theses and Dissertations -- version .03

This version

http://www.thesis.org/standards/metadata/draft-01-10-2001.html

Current version

http://www.thesis.org/standards/metadata/current.html

Previous version

http://www.thesis.org/standards/metadata/draft-09-11-2000.html
http://www.thesis.org/standards/metadata/draft-07-09-2000.html

Editors

Anthony Atkins, Virginia Tech

Thorsten Bahne, University of Duisburg

Nuno Freire, National Library of Portugal

Sarantos Kapidakis, National Documentation Center - Greece

Outline

1. Introduction

2. Authorities

3. Metadata Elements

3.1 dc.title
3.2 dc.creator
3.3 dc.publisher
3.4 dc.subject
3.5 dc.description
3.6 dc.contributor
3.7 dc.date
3.8 dc.type
3.9 dc.format
3.10 dc.identifier
3.11 dc.language
3.12 dc.coverage
3.13 dc.rights
3.14 thesis.degree

4.Global Qualifiers

5.History

6.Contributors

1.Introduction

This document defines a standard set of metadata elements used to describe an electronic thesis or dissertation.

Institutions dealing with electronic theses and dissertations have all developed their own standards or adapted existing metadata standards. These metadata standards all attempt to describe the author, the work, and the context in which the work was produced in a way that will be useful to the researcher as well as the librarians and/or technical staff maintaining the work in its electronic form.

This document is not a replacement for the metadata schemes developed for a particular university or environment. Rather, this document should be used as a guideline to develop a faithful cross-walk between local metadata standards and a single standard used for sharing information about ETDs.

2. Authorities

Each reference to an individual or institution in any field should contain a string representing the name of the individual or institution as it appears in the work. The reference may also contain a URI which points to an authoritative record for that individual or institution.

3. Metadata Elements

The following is a description of the common Dublin Core metadata elements, and which information related to an ETD belongs in each field. If a more general element is described as mandatory, it should be specified fully, even if qualified elements are also specified. If a more general element is repeatable, it should be assumed that sub-elements are also repeatable.

3.1 dc.title

Element Description Notes

dc.title A name given to the resource. In the case of theses and dissertations, this is the title of the work as it appears on the title page or equivalent. Mandatory

dc.title.alternative alternative title of the thesis or dissertation Repeatable

3.2 dc.creator

Element Description Notes

dc.creator An entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource. In the case of theses or dissertations, this field is appropriate for the author(s) of the work. Like other names and institutions, this field should be entered in free text form as it appears on the title page or equivalent, with a link to to an authority record if available. See "Authority" section for more information. Mandatory,
Repeatable

3.3 dc.publisher

Element Description Notes

dc.publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available. This is typically the group most directly responsible for digitizing and/or archiving the work. The publisher may or may not be exactly the same as ndltd.degree.grantor. Like other names and institutions, this field should be entered in free text form as it appears on the title page or equivalent, with a link to to an authority record if available. See "Authority" section for more information. Mandatory,
Repeatable

3.4 dc.subject

Element Description Notes

dc.subject The topic of the content of the resource. In the case of theses and dissertations, keywords or subjects listed on the title page can be entered as free text. The scheme qualifier should be used to indicate a controlled vocabulary. See Global Qualifiers for more information. Mandatory,
Repeatable

3.5 dc.description

Element Description Notes

dc.description An account of the content of the resource. In the case of theses and disserations, this is typically used for the abstract. Repeatable

dc.description.note Additional information regarding the thesis or dissertation. Example: acceptance note of the department Repeatable

dc.description.release Description of the version of the work. Should only be used for errata, etc.. Repeatable

3.6 dc.contributor

Element Description Notes

dc.contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource. Typical use would be for co-authors of parts of the work as well as advisors or committee members. Co-authors of the entire work would be more appropriate for the dc.creator field. Repeatable

dc.contributor.role Role the person played in the creation or approval of the work. The acceptable values are:

advisor

chair

referee

3.7 dc.date

Element Description Notes

dc.date A date associated with an event in the life cycle of the resource. In the case of theses and dissertations, this should be the date that appears on the title page or equivalent of the work. Should be recorded as defined in ISO 8601 and the profile recommended for implementing ISO 8601 dates in Dublin Core. Mandatory

3.8 dc.type

Element Description Notes

dc.type The nature or genre of the content of the resource. This field is used to distinguish the category (Thesis, Disseration, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation) from other types of works. Degree and Education Level are now handled by the thesis.degree field. Mandatory

3.9 dc.format

Element Description Notes

dc.format The physical or digital manifestation of the resource. In the case of an electronic thesis or dissertation, this should contain a list of the electronic format(s) in which the work is stored and/or delivered. Use the standard MIME type whenever possible. List as "unknown" if no format information is available. Mandatory,
Repeatable

3.10 dc.identifier

Element Description Notes

dc.identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context. This should be provided if available, most conceivable applications (search indices, etc.) will have to generate a unique identifier if one is not available. Repeatable

3.11 dc.language

Element Description Notes

dc.language A language of the intellectual content of the resource. This should be the primary language the work is recorded in. Portions of the larger work that appear in other languages should use the lang qualifier. See Global Qualifiers. Language names themselves should be recorded using ISO 639-2 (or RFC 1766?) Repeatable

3.12 dc.coverage

Element Description Notes

dc.coverage The extent or scope of the content of the resource. Should be used for time periods or spatial regions, use dc.subject.

3.13 dc.rights

Element Description Notes

dc.rights Information about rights held in and over the resource. Typically, this describes the conditions under which the work may be distributed, reproduced, etc., how these conditions may change over time, and whom to contact regarding the copyright of the work. Repeatable

3.14 thesis.degree

Element Description Notes

thesis.degree Name of the degree associated with the work as it appears within the work. (example: Masters in Operations Research)

thesis.degree.level Level of education associated with the document, selected from among the following: bachelor's, master's, doctoral, post-doctoral, other.

thesis.degree.discipline Area of study of the intellectual content of the document. Usually, this will be a department name. Repeatable

thesis.degree.grantor Institution granting the degree associated with the work. Like other names and institutions, this field should be entered in free text form as it appears on the title page or equivalent, with a link to to an authority record if available. See "Authority" section for more information. Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.title	A name given to the resource. In the case of theses and dissertations, this is the title of the work as it appears on the title page or equivalent.	Mandatory
dc.title.alternative	alternative title of the thesis or dissertation	Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.creator	An entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource. In the case of theses or dissertations, this field is appropriate for the author(s) of the work. Like other names and institutions, this field should be entered in free text form as it appears on the title page or equivalent, with a link to to an authority record if available. See "Authority" section for more information.	Mandatory, Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.publisher	An entity responsible for making the resource available. This is typically the group most directly responsible for digitizing and/or archiving the work. The publisher may or may not be exactly the same as ndltd.degree.grantor. Like other names and institutions, this field should be entered in free text form as it appears on the title page or equivalent, with a link to to an authority record if available. See "Authority" section for more information.	Mandatory, Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.subject	The topic of the content of the resource. In the case of theses and dissertations, keywords or subjects listed on the title page can be entered as free text. The scheme qualifier should be used to indicate a controlled vocabulary. See Global Qualifiers for more information.	Mandatory, Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.description	An account of the content of the resource. In the case of theses and disserations, this is typically used for the abstract.	Repeatable
dc.description.note	Additional information regarding the thesis or dissertation. Example: acceptance note of the department	Repeatable
dc.description.release	Description of the version of the work. Should only be used for errata, etc..	Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.contributor	An entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource. Typical use would be for co-authors of parts of the work as well as advisors or committee members. Co-authors of the entire work would be more appropriate for the dc.creator field.	Repeatable
dc.contributor.role	Role the person played in the creation or approval of the work. The acceptable values are: advisor chair referee

Element	Description	Notes
dc.date	A date associated with an event in the life cycle of the resource. In the case of theses and dissertations, this should be the date that appears on the title page or equivalent of the work. Should be recorded as defined in ISO 8601 and the profile recommended for implementing ISO 8601 dates in Dublin Core.	Mandatory

Element	Description	Notes
dc.type	The nature or genre of the content of the resource. This field is used to distinguish the category (Thesis, Disseration, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation) from other types of works. Degree and Education Level are now handled by the thesis.degree field.	Mandatory

Element	Description	Notes
dc.format	The physical or digital manifestation of the resource. In the case of an electronic thesis or dissertation, this should contain a list of the electronic format(s) in which the work is stored and/or delivered. Use the standard MIME type whenever possible. List as "unknown" if no format information is available.	Mandatory, Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.identifier	An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context. This should be provided if available, most conceivable applications (search indices, etc.) will have to generate a unique identifier if one is not available.	Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.language	A language of the intellectual content of the resource. This should be the primary language the work is recorded in. Portions of the larger work that appear in other languages should use the lang qualifier. See Global Qualifiers. Language names themselves should be recorded using ISO 639-2 (or RFC 1766?)	Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
dc.coverage	The extent or scope of the content of the resource. Should be used for time periods or spatial regions, use dc.subject.

Element	Description	Notes
dc.rights	Information about rights held in and over the resource. Typically, this describes the conditions under which the work may be distributed, reproduced, etc., how these conditions may change over time, and whom to contact regarding the copyright of the work.	Repeatable

Element	Description	Notes
thesis.degree	Name of the degree associated with the work as it appears within the work. (example: Masters in Operations Research)
thesis.degree.level	Level of education associated with the document, selected from among the following: bachelor's, master's, doctoral, post-doctoral, other.
thesis.degree.discipline	Area of study of the intellectual content of the document. Usually, this will be a department name.	Repeatable
thesis.degree.grantor	Institution granting the degree associated with the work. Like other names and institutions, this field should be entered in free text form as it appears on the title page or equivalent, with a link to to an authority record if available. See "Authority" section for more information.	Repeatable

4. Global Qualifiers

In addition to the attributes specified for various elements, there are also a handful of global attributes that can be specified for any element.

lang
An indication of the language in which the value of a field is written. This is entirely separate from the dc.lang element, which indicates the primary language of the work itself.

translated
An empty element that indicates that the value of a field is a translation provided by someone other than the author. For translations provided by the author, simply indicate the language of the field itself (using the "lang" attribute).

scheme
Description of the vocabulary or scheme used to determine the subject(s)

5. Sample Record

{ sample record coming soon }

6. Document History

This document is based primarly on the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and the proposed set of qualifiers put forward by the DC Date Working Group.

The current version of this document was produced as a result of a two-day meeting that took place at OCLC in Dublin Ohio on January 9-10 of 2001.

This document is also a distillation of the discussions which took place at the workshop "DTDs and the usage of new XML-technologies for electronic theses and dissertations" held in May of 2000 at Humboldt University in Berlin. A list of the participants is included in the contributors section. More information regarding this workshop can be found at: http://dochost.rz.hu-berlin.de/epdiss/dtd-workshop/.

This document is also based in part on a prior document entitled "NDLTD Metadata" drafted by Gail McMillan and Paul Mather.

7. Contributors

This draft was discussed and prepared as part of the "ETD Standards Meeting" held on January 9-10, 2001 at OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. in Dublin, Ohio (USA) The following people attended the meeting:

Anthony Atkins, Virginia Tech

Thorsten Bahne, Gerhard-Mercator-Universitat (Germany)

Eric Childress, OCLC

John Espley, VTLS

Ed Fox, Virginia Tech

Robert France, Virginia Tech

Nuno Freire, Portuguese National Library

Thom Hickey, OCLC

Sarantos Kapidakis, National Documentation Centre (Greece)

Sunny Kim, Academy of Korean Studies / Virginia Tech

Mann-Ho Lee, Chungnam National University (Korea) / Virginia Tech

Akira Maeda, Nara Institute of Science & Technology (Japan) / Virginia Tech

Eric Miller, OCLC

Ed O'Neill, OCLC

Shalini Urs, University of Mysore (India) / Virginia Tech

Diane Vizine-Goetz, OCLC

Stu Weibel, OCLC

The following individuals and groups contributed to the previous draft of this document:

Dr. Edward Fox, Director, National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

Gail McMillan, Director Digital Library and Archives

Anthony Atkins, Technical Director, Digital Library and Archives

The following people participated in the metadata discussion led by Nuno Freire and Thorsten Bahne, which was part of the workshop "DTDs and the usage of new XML-technologies for electronic theses and dissertations" held at Humboldt University in Berlin in May of 2000:

Per Åkerlund, SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) Libraries, SWEDEN, Per.Akerlund@bibul.slu.se

Anthony Atkins, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, University Libraries, USA, anthony.atkins@vt.edu

Thorsten Bahne, Mathematics, University of Duisburg, Dissertation Online Project, GERMANY, bahne@math.uni-duisburg.de

Viviane Bouletreau, Sentiers, Université Lumiére, Lyon 2, FRANCE vboletr@univ-lyon2.fr

Wolfgang Coy, School of Informatics, Humboldt-University Berlin, GERMANY, coy@informatik.hu-berlin.de

Peter Diepold, Humboldt-University Berlin, School of Educational Science, GERMANY, diepold@educat.hu-berlin.de

Susanne Dobratz, Humboldt-University Berlin, Computing Center, GERMANY dobratz@rz.hu-berlin.de

Havard Fosseng, University of Oslo, Center for Information technology Services, NORWAY, havard.fosseng@usit.uio.no

Nuno Freire, National Library Portugal, PORTUGAL, nuno.freire@ext.bn.pt

Martin Hess, Informatik Uni Frankfurt: GERMANY hess@tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de

Uwe Müller, Humboldt-University Berlin, Computing Center GERMANY u.mueller@rz.hu-berlin.de

Phil Potter, University of Iowa, Academic Technologies (part of Information Technology Services), USA phil-potter@uiowa.edu

Sebastian Rahtz, TeX User Group, UK; sebastian.rahtz@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk

Paul W. Schaffner, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Library, USA, pfs@umich.edu

Matthias Schulz, Humboldt-University Berlin, Computing Center, GERMANY matthias.schulz.1@rz.hu-berlin.de

Peter Schirmbacher, Humboldt-University Berlin, Computing Center GERMANY schirmbacher@rz.hu-berlin.de

Tuija Sonkkila, Helsinki University of Technology, Library, FINLAND sonkkila@cc.hut.fi

Christof Steinbeck, Mack-Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology, Jena GERMANY, steinbeck@ice.mpg.de

Kerstin Zimmermann, University of Oldenburg; Department of Physics; GERMANY; kerstin@merlin.physik.uni-oldenburg.de

Last Updated on: by Anthony Atkins