Resource Series ★★★

Very often, resources identified in a catalogue are part of a larger body of work. When this is the case it is useful to document such a relation in the metadata. The resource metadata element series is designed for this purpose.

• Path - MD_Metadata.identificationInfo>MD_DataIdentification.citation>CI_Citation.series
• Governance - Agency, Domain
• Purpose - Discovery, identification
• Audience -
  • machine resource - ⭑⭑⭑
  • general - ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑
  • data manager - ⭑⭑⭑⭑
  • specialist - ⭑⭑⭑
• Metadata type - descriptive
• ICSM Level of Agreement - ⭑⭑

Definition

Information about the series, or aggregate resource, of which the resource is a part.

ISO Obligation

• There may be one [0..1] series package for the cited resource in the MD_DataIdentification.citation package of class CI_Series in a metadata record.

ICSM Best Practice Recommendations

• This element should be populated in all metadata records where the resource is one part of a series.

Recommended Sub Elements

From class CI_Series

• name - (type - charStr) [0..1] name of the series, or aggregate resource, of which the resource is a part
• issueIdentification - (type - charStr) [0..1] information identifying the issue of the series
• page - (type - charStr) [0..1] Mostly not recommended as not common. Details on which pages of the publication the article was published

Discussion

The content of all three CI_Series elements are free text and optional. How one would link back to the series metadata is unclear. It could be captured in “Name” as a resolvable URI. Perhaps through the Parent Metadata element? What is the relation between “Series” and “Parent Metadata”

It is conceivable that there may be more than one series to which a dataset may belong. The dataset may be part of a time series while also part of a thematic series. But, by the standard, a resource may only belong to one cited series. Guidance needs to be developed for users on this topic.

Recommendations

Series has proven to be a difficult element to pin down for a number of reasons. Below is a list of issues that should be included in good practice guidance on this element:

• Definition of this element needs to be expanded to include a definition of “series” in our context. The current structure supports the capture of page entry in a serial publication.
• When a cardinality of zero to one, we need this well defined since it is conceivable that a resource may be part of multiple series depending on the definition and post of view.
• Good practices of how one captures links to series metadata needs development.
• The relation (if any) between series and parent metadata needs discussion.
• The use of the three CI_Series elements are not well defined for the spatial context in which they reside. Further discussion is recommended.

Until these topics are resolved we do not recommend the inclusion of series as recommended elements. If series information is to be captured, the minimum information needed would be CI_Series > name.

It may be better to use other elements such as parentMetadata or associatedResource to capture series type relationships.

Crosswalk considerations

Also Consider

• Parent Metadata - hierarchical relations of metadata records
• AssociatedResource - information about aggregate data and related resources
• Resource Citation - parent to this element

Examples

<mdb:MD_Metadata>
....
   <mdb:identificationInfo>
      <mri:MD_DataIdentification>
      ....
         <mri:citation>
            <cit:CI_Citation>
               ....
               <cit:series>
                  <cit:CI_Series>
                     <cit:name>
                        <gco:CharacterString>OpenWork GeoData Series
                        </gco:CharacterString>
                     </cit:name>
                     <cit:issueIdentification gco:nilReason="missing">
                        <gco:CharacterString/>
                     </cit:issueIdentification>
                  </cit:CI_Series>
               </cit:series>
               .....
           </cit:CI_Citation>
         </mri:citation>
         ....
      </mri:MD_DataIdentification>
   </mdb:identificationInfo>
....
</mdb:MD_Metadata>

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