ICSM ISO19115-1 Metadata Best Practice Guide

Resource Title ★★★★★

The most important component of the Resource Citation is the title element. To easily communicate about a resource and at least locally differentiate it from others, it is useful that the resource has a common name. This name is captured in the Resource Citation title element.

   
Element Name title
Parent MD_Metadata.identificationInfo>MD_Identificationcitation>CI_Citation
Class/Type characterString
Governance Common ICSM, Agency, Domain
Purpose Discovery, Identification
Audience machine resource - ⭑
  general - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  resource manager - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
  specialist - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
Metadata type descriptive
ICSM Level of Agreement ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Definition

The most common useful name by which the resource is known.

ISO Obligation

Discussion

The value of the title field should be the most common name by which the resource is known by your largest perceived audience. It should be relatively unique or made so by the inclusion of expanded title elements such as edition numbers or agency name.

There can be multiple alternate titles captured for a resource in the sibling element alternateTitle. These should be populated with other known names or variations of the name.

ICSM Best Practice Recommendations

Therefore - there must be one title given for a resource. The value of the title field should be the most common name by which the resource is known by your largest perceived audience. It should be relatively unique or made so by the inclusion of expanded title elements such as edition numbers or agency name.

Use the sibling element alternateTitle to capture other names by which the resource may be known. Index both title and alternateTitle in the same index to increase the likelihood that the resource may be found by the title that others may know it.

If the title is not a common language name, at least one alternate title should be common language title such as a layperson may identify it.

ICSM Good Practice

Also Consider

Crosswalk considerations

Dublin core / CKAN / data.gov.au

Maps to title

DCAT

Maps to dct.title

RIF-CS

Maps to Title

Examples

Example Current Use

ABARES

“2.5M Topographical Series 1998 MAPDATA TOPO_2.5M Scale 1:2.5 Million”

GA

“Geomorphic features of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean 2012”

Data.gov.au

Location of Medicare Offices

XML

<mdb:MD_Metadata>
....
  <mdb:identificationInfo>
   <mri:MD_DataIdentification>
     <mri:citation>
      <cit:CI_Citation>
        <cit:title>
         <gco:CharacterString>OpenWork geographical data<
         /gco:CharacterString>
        </cit:title>
        <cit:alternateTitle>
         <gco:CharacterString>geodata by OpenWork</gco:CharacterString>
        </cit:alternateTitle>
        ....
      </cit:CI_Citation>
     </mri:citation>
     ....
   </mri:MD_DataIdentification>
  </mdb:identificationInfo>
....
</mdb:MD_Metadata>

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UML diagrams

Recommended elements highlighted in yellow

title

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