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GeoBTAA Metadata Handbook

This handbook describes how to harvest and format metadata records for the BTAA Geoportal.

  • Reference

    Documentation about the GeoBTAA Metadata Application Profile.

  • Explanation

    Descriptions of processes, content organization, policies, and tools

  • How To Guides

    Step-by-step workflows for harvesting and editing metadata for the BTAA Geoportal.

  • Tutorials

    Short, easy to complete exercises to help someone get the basics of running and writing scripts to harvest metadata.

Who is this handbook for?

Metadata Handbook Version History

_Changes for Version 5.3 (December 23, 2025)

This release includes documentation for new provenance workflow fields

  • Establishes new landing page for custom fields at gin.btaa.org/metadata/b1g
  • Documents seven new custom fields for tracking harvest cycles
  • Provides new guidance on local controlled values for Resource Types for websites, Harvest Workflow codes, and Accrual Method values
  • Removes outdated or overly general pages on ephemeral data and other metadata schemas
  • Changes "Recipes" section to "How-to Guides" to better align with Diataxis and for clearer navigation headers
  • Migrates some background info on the profile from Reference to Explanation

Changes for Version 5.2 (February 4, 2025)

This release includes documentation for several new metadata fields and updated worflows.

Changes for Version 5.1 (September 25, 2023)

This version adds several new recipes and page cleanups.

  • New recipes for:
    • cleaning metadata
    • adding bounding boxes
    • normalizing creators
    • updating our list of ArcGIS Hubs
    • how to add multiple download links in GEOMG
  • Updates the documentation for the ArcGIS, Socrata, and PASDA recipes.
  • Updates the DCAT and CKAN documentation pages.

Changes for Version 5.0 (May 24, 2023)

This version incorporates the Harvesting Guide notebooks and includes documentation for harvesting metadata from different sources.

  • New page describing the Tutorials in the Harvesting Guide
  • Eight Recipe pages corresponding to Harvesting Guide
  • Updated header design to match Geoportal

Changes for Version 4.6 (March 15, 2023)

  • New page for manually adding bounding boxes
  • Restructure using Diataxis framework
  • Remove some GEOMG how to guidelines (moved to GEOMG Wiki)
  • Clarify Editing Template differences from OGM-Aaardvark documentation
  • Added Collection Development Policy and Curation Priorities documents
  • Update input guidelines for Spatial Coverage (FAST IDs)

Changes for Version 4.5.1 (February 28, 2023)

  • Update version documentation
  • Add link to generated PDF

Changes for Version 4.5 (February 28, 2023)

  • Add Creator ID
  • Update input guidelines for Creator, Creator ID
  • Remove Harvesting Guide info (migrating to separate site)
  • Edit Submitting Metadata page
  • Minor copy editing
  • Add PDF export capability

Changes for Version 4.4 (August 23, 2022)

  • updated theme
  • reorganized and expanded navigation menu
  • new sections for Harvesting Guide and using GEOMG

Changes for Version 4.3 (August 15, 2022)

  • migrate to MkDocs.org platform
  • update bounding box entry guidelines
  • add GEOMG page

Changes for Version 4.2 (March 24, 2022)

  • New Entry and Usage Guidelines page
  • Expands content organization model documentation
  • Changes the name of the schema from 'Aardvark' to 'OpenGeoMetadata (version Aardvark)'
  • Cleans up outdated links

Changes for Version 4.1 (Jan 2022)

  • updates Status as optional; removes controlled vocabulary
  • Clarifies relationship model

Changes for Version 4.0 (July 2021)

  • Incorporation of GEOMG Metadata Editor
  • Upgrade to Aardvark Metadata Schema for GeoBlacklight

Changes for version 3.3 (May 13, 2020)

  • Added University of Nebraska
  • Reorganized Metadata Elements to match editing template
  • Updated the “Update the Collections” section to match new administrative process for tracking records

Changes for version 3.2 (Jan 8, 2020)

  • Added Date Range element

Changes for version 3.1 (Dec 19, 2019)

  • Added collection level records metadata schema

Changes for version 3 (Oct 2019)

  • GeoNetwork and Omeka deprecated
  • all GeoBlacklight records are stored in a spreadsheet in Google Sheets
  • records are transformed from CSV to GeoBlacklight JSON with a Python script
  • additional metadata fields were added for administrative purposes
  • IsPartOf field now holds a code pointing to the collection record
  • Administrative groupings such as “State agencies geospatial data” are now subjects, not a Collection
  • updated editing templates available
  • all supplemental metadata can be stored as XML or HTML in project hosted folder
  • updated links to collections database