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Coastal Metadata Reference Guide
MetaScribe: A New Tool for Metadata GenerationIntroduction | Template Construction | Test Your Template | Build Metadata Easily | Planned Development IntroductionThe NOAA Coastal Services Center's MetaScribe tool is designed to reduce significantly the labor required to produce metadata compliant with the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM). This software tool takes advantage of the fact that, within a collection of records for a given data type, the records are generally very similar in content, with only a few fields or phrases changing from one record to the next. MetaScribe delivers the greatest savings when used to create a collection of similar records. In fact, this tool is not appropriate for the creation of multiple metadata records with little redundant content. MetaScribe is template driven (see example template). The user must create a metadata template, which is uploaded into MetaScribe. Building a template is not a trivial task; however, once a template is created for a given data type, the user can create multiple records quickly and easily. MetaScribe uses two proofing tools to check the records it creates: cns (Chew and Spit) and mp (Metadata Parser). These programs, created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), will report any errors within a record and require that those errors be fixed before a final metadata record is produced. This illustrates the importance of creating a proper template that will produce error-free records. Template ConstructionA working understanding of the FGDC CSDGM is needed to create a template (or multiple templates for multiple data types). These templates are kept and maintained locally on your system. A new template for a particular data type is warranted when the labor of building a new template is less than the continued use of an existing template. Templates must be plain text. A template is created by writing a metadata record that contains special tags. Each tag specifies an input field. Values entered into each of the resulting input fields replaces the associated tags in the template to produce a completed metadata record. The tags resemble HTML tags with a tag name and several attributes. (View both an example template and the data entry page it produces.) The suggested process for creating a template is as follows:
Each attribute ( Creating TagsThe The
The The The Since the tags are enclosed by the "less than" ( Tag ExamplesAn example of a
<originator type="textbox" value="NOAA Coastal Services
Center" label="Originator">
That tag would produce this input field.
Example
<use_constraints type="textarea" value="None"
label="Use constraints:">
Example
<use_this_string type="checkbox" value="text to insert"
label="Include this or not?">
Example
<name_of_list type="select" value="1,2,3,4"
label="Pick one:">
Example
<placekey type="fgdc_list" value="Enter place keywords -
separated by newline." label="Place Keywords:"
fgdc="Place_Keyword">
Test Your TemplateOnce all variable portions of your record have been replaced with tags, use the tag checker to ensure that you have not left out quotes or forgotten to close a tag with the The last step in creating a template is to try to wrap your text and place the tags so that your template will produce text that is "wrapped" reasonably well. MetaScribe uses 'cns' to clean up the record format and then uses a simple line wrapping routine to wrap long lines. When a template is used in MetaScribe, this can—on occasion—produce lines with only a few words. If this is unacceptable, you can structure your template to avoid line wrapping. This sometimes takes one or two iterations to get the desired formatting. Build Metadata EasilyAfter creating a well-formed template, follow the steps below to create metadata.
Your template is written to a temporary disk cache on the Web server and kept for about 4 hours after the template is first uploaded (or you complete a record and begin a new record with the same template). At any time after that, it may be purged from the system. Therefore, please complete the input fields in your record within four hours. If you fail to complete the record in that time, you will have to upload the template again and start over. Making Sense of cns ErrorsReliance on the USGS cns and mp tools introduces some behaviors into MetaScribe that should be noted. If the content of an FGDC field contains a line which begins with an FGDC field name but is not the beginning of an FGDC field, the cns tool will fail to parse the record correctly and will report an error. For instance, Description is a field name. If the Abstract section contains a line that starts with Description, then the cns tool interprets that second occurrence of the string as an FGDC field tag and determines that it is in the incorrect place in the record structure. If this occurs in your metadata, you must adjust the format of your template. The following example of an Abstract section will cause an error.
Description:
Abstract:
This data set serves as a definition and
description of something worth knowing about.
MetaScribe will show an error like the following: The 'cns' pre-parser returned the following problems: 29: of something worth knowing about. Note that the error does not mention the word "description." If you get such an error, examine your template for field names at the beginning of the reported line or a line very near it. To repair this in your template, simply move the word "description" up onto the end of the previous line.
Description:
Abstract:
This data set serves as a definition and description
of something worth knowing about.
Planned DevelopmentItems under consideration:
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