ICSM ISO19115-1 Metadata Best Practice Guide

Resource Point of Contact ★★★★★

One of the most important pieces of information that can be shared in a metadata record is the resource Point of Contact. By retrieving the means to access the party responsible for questions about the resource, all other information should be able to be obtained even if it is not in the metadata.

   
Element Name pointOfContact
Parent MD_Metadata.identificationInfo>MD_Identification
Class/Type CI_Responsibility
Governance Agency
Purpose Discovery, Evaluation, Communications
Audience machine resource - ⭑ ⭑
  general - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  resource manager - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  specialist - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
Metadata type descriptive
ICSM Level of Agreement ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Definition

The name and contact information for the organisation, role and/or individual that serves as the point of contact for the cited resource.

ISO Obligation

Discussion

This element exists for the provision of a set of attributes for identification of, and means of communication with, person(s) and organisation(s) associated with the resource be they data or service (MD_DataIdentification or SV_ServiceIdentification). This element refers to the party responsible for the resource itself and the maintenance of this resource. It does not refer to the party responsible for the metadata or the distribution of the resource.

This is a compound element of type CI_ResponsibleParty. At least one should be present. Recommended role value - “PointOfContact” with attached email. Other contacts can be added as required. Other role values are acceptable.

ICSM Best Practice Recommendations

Therefore - to meet ICSM good practice, in all metadata records, at least one point of contact should be given for the party responsible for the cited resource. These should default to role code “Point of Contact”. In addition, for minimal conformity, name (of organisation preferred), positionName and electronicMailAddress should also be populated. The use of the new partyIdentifier element added in the 2018 amendment to the standard is encouraged by all parties.

Follow the general guidelines for CI_Responsibility.

Also Consider

Crosswalk considerations

ISO19139

See discussion at CI_Responsibility

Dublin core / CKAN / data.gov.au

Maps to contact

Note BC 19-7: These map to the same elements as Metadata Contact. Is this a problem?

DCAT

Maps to dcat:contactPoint

RIF-CS

Maps to Related Party

Examples

XML

<mdb:MD_Metadata>
....
  <mdb:identificationInfo>
   <mri:MD_DataIdentification>
....
    <mri:pointOfContact>
      <cit:CI_Responsibility>
        <cit:role>
         <cit:CI_RoleCode 
         codeList="https://schemas.isotc211.org/19115/resources
         /Codelist/cat/codelists.xml#CI_RoleCode" 
         codeListValue="custodian"/>
        </cit:role>
        <cit:party>
         <cit:CI_Organisation>
           <cit:name>
            <gco:CharacterString>OpenWork Ltd</gco:CharacterString>
           </cit:name>
           <cit:contactInfo>
            <cit:CI_Contact>
              <cit:address>
               <cit:CI_Address>
                 <cit:electronicMailAddress>
                  <gco:CharacterString>email@mail.com
                  </gco:CharacterString>
                 </cit:electronicMailAddress>
               </cit:CI_Address>
              </cit:address>
            </cit:CI_Contact>
           </cit:contactInfo>
           <cit:individual>
            <cit:CI_Individual>
              <cit:name>
               <gco:CharacterString>Metadata Bob
               </gco:CharacterString>
              </cit:name>
              <cit:positionName>
               <gco:CharacterString>GIS Guru
               </gco:CharacterString>
              </cit:positionName>
            </cit:CI_Individual>
           </cit:individual>
         </cit:CI_Organisation>
        </cit:party>
      </cit:CI_Responsibility>
     </mri:pointOfContact>
....
   </mri:MD_DataIdentification>
  </mdb:identificationInfo>
....
</mdb:MD_Metadata>

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UML diagrams

Recommended elements highlighted in yellow

Responsibility

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