Field Glossary
OSDP manages a set of metadata fields that describes each record’s content. When using this information to search and filter records, knowing a few key details about the type of information and how many values each field can hold can greatly enhance the search experience.
The first tab below provides the background information on the types of fields OSDP supports, an explanation around how often a field can occur in each record, and why this is important. The remaining tabs then describe separate groups of OSDP fields using these basic concepts.
Field Types and Occurrences
Field Types
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Code | A limited set of pre-defined values can be assigned to a code-based field, with English and French display values (e.g., Province code of ON, with matching English and French display values of “Ontario”). The record tallies that appear on the related Filters show how many records with that value exist in the current Search Result Set. |
| Date | Most sources include year, month, and day or part thereof, which can be expressed as YYYY, YYYY-MM, or most commonly YYYY-MM-DD. For search purposes, these dates are rationalized to the YYYY-MM-DD format, while the visuals show the source-provided value. For certain fields containing a timestamp, the time portion hh:mm:ss is assembled with the date in a standard format that assumes GMT (Zulu) time with a zero hour offset: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ |
| Geometry | Latitude/Longitude pairs assembled to describe one or more points or polygons. |
| Hierarchy | A special set of code values with an additional parent-child structure overlaid to represent the relationships between values, organized from least to most specific when navigating from parent to child. |
| Identifier | A unique record identifier. |
| Number | A discreet number, like square kilometers or a count. |
| Text | Separate English and French versions of the field can hold any freeform text. |
| URL | Separate English and French versions of the field can hold a link to a web page. |
Field Occurrences
Some fields must always have a value, while others can optionally be provided by the Contributor based on record context. This is important to understand when preparing search criteria, because when indicating that a record must have a specific value will automatically exclude all those records that don’t have that value (including the ones where the information is missing).
When considering the number of values a field can hold, there’s a minimum and maximum number of values allowed.
| Occurs | Description |
|---|---|
| 0-1 | Optional field that can have at most one value. |
| 1 | Mandatory field that will always have exactly one value. |
| 0-M | Optional field that could have many values. |
| 1-M | Mandatory field that will always have at least one value but could have many. |
Location
Location Fields
A variety of fields provide location-based context for each record, including freeform text descriptions, discreet code values, coordinates and/or areas on a map that can be visualized.
* Fields prefaced with a * are available as both Keyword Search and Advanced SearchFilters. All others are available only as Advanced Search Filters.
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Code | 0-M | Countries identified in the record’s metadata. |
| *Geographic Location | Geometry | 0-M | Zero or more points or polygons describing the relevant location on a map. |
| Geometry Primary Type | Code | 1 | Describes whether the Geographic Location field holds a point, multi-point or line, polygon(s), or is missing. |
| Geometry Square Kilometers | Number | 1 | Relative geometry coverage size, used mainly when assessing geospatial relevance of one record in comparison with another. |
| Geometry Count | Number | 1 | Number of unique points or polygons specified in the Geographic Location field. |
| Graphic URL | URL | 0-1 | Primarily for Datasets, provides a link to a graphical thumbnail depicting the record’s visual map contents. |
| *Mappable Type | Code | 1 | Groups content by map-related capabilities, like map services, downloadable files, and preparation of in-map contexts. |
| Placename | Text | 0-M | Freeform place name details, in addition to long names for Provinces, Countries, and Regions. |
| *Provinces and Territories | Code | 0-M | List of Provinces and Territories referenced on a record. |
| Region | Code | 0-M | Regions associated with a given record, based on the identified countries. |
Time
Time Fields
Dates and timestamps are captured from both the Contributors as well as OSDP. Each can be leveraged in search queries to narrow the result sets in different ways.
* Fields prefaced with a * are available as both Keyword Search and Advanced Search Filters. All others are available only as Advanced Search Filters.
Contributor Dates
Use these dates to assess the time-relevance of Contributor content.
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| *Contributor Published | Date | 1 | Date the Contributor originally created this record. |
| *Contributor Updated | Date | 1 | Date the Contributor last updated this record. |
| *Contributor Time Coverage | Range | 0-1 | Optional Contributor-provided Date range indicating the period covered by the content. |
Contributor Time Coverage Start |
Date | 0-1 | Start Date associated with the Time Coverage. |
Contributor Time Coverage End |
Date | 0-1 | End Date associated with the Time Coverage. |
OSDP Dates
Use these dates to find content that has been recently added or updated in OSDP.
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| *OSDP Published | Date | 1 | Timestamp when OSDP first created this record. |
| *OSDP Updated | Date | 1 | Timestamp when OSDP last updated this record. |
Source
Source Fields
Each OSDP record holds important metadata describing the source record that includes information like what the content represents, who is providing it, how often the content is updated, how to uniquely identify a record, and the terms and conditions around which the content may be used.
* Fields prefaced with a * are available as both Keyword Search and Advanced Search Filters. All others are available only as Advanced Search Filters.
** When performing a Keyword Search, the fields prefaced with a ** are used by the search engine when comparing to the provided keywords (Title, Description, Keywords, Citation, Publisher, Creator, and Placename).
What it is
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Citation | Text | 1 | An APA version 7 citation, either as provided by publication library systems or built based on the metadata provided to OSDP. |
| **Description | Text | 0-1 | Most records have a summary description. |
| **Keywords | Text | 0-M | All records can have a mix of source-provided and value-added keywords that will be used by the search engine when performing a Keyword Search, or for inclusion in an Advanced Search Request. |
| **Title | Text | 1 | All records have a single mandatory title. |
Who’s Providing It
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Author (Authorities) | Text | 0-M | The individuals or organizations that originally created the source materials. In the case of Development Activities this represents the Authorities that are managing the assessment. |
| *Contributor Organization | Code | 1 | The organization that’s providing the content identified in an OSDP record. |
| *Contributor System | Code | 1 | The specific source within a Contributing Organization that’s providing the content for a specific record. Any organization could have many source systems, but any specific record will have only one source. |
| **Publisher (Proponent) | Text | 0-M | The organization that is publishing this content to the public. In the case of Development Activities, this represents the Proponent who submitted the proposed project. |
How often it’s updated
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Update Frequency | Code | 1 | Indicates how often the Contributor System is expected to provide updates to the source materials, should an update become available. |
Record Identifiers
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collection Child ID | Text | 0-M | OSDP Collections will relate many OSDP “child” records to a given “parent” collection via OSDP-ID. Any OSDP record can belong to more than one collection. |
| External ID | Text | 1 | The unique identifier used by the Contributor System to identify this specific record. |
| External DOI ID | Text | 0-1 | Specific to publications, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of this publication record, if one has been assigned (expressed as a full DOI URL). |
| OSDP ID | Text | 1 | The unique OSDP identifier used to manage a single OSDP record, often used in URLs like specific Metadata Pages when seeking a single record. |
Terms and Conditions of use
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| License | Code | 1 | The specific license under which the contents attached to this record are provided, or Unknown when missing. The related information on the Metadata Page includes both the license name and a link to its terms and conditions. |
| Notes | Group | 0-M | Optionally, specific notes or disclaimers can be added to a record that will appear on the Metadata Page immediately following the Description. When a note exists, it will include all 3 of the related note fields below. |
Note Type |
Code | 1 | Indicates the type of note (e.g., Note, Disclaimer, Call to Action, etc.) that influences how the note will be presented. |
Note Title |
Text | 1 | The first line of the note, intended to establish what it is. |
Note Description |
Text | 1 | The detailed note or disclaimer text conveying the corresponding message about the record. |
| Public Availability | Code | 1 | An indication as to whether the content is confirmed to be open. Sources that explicitly indicate a record is fee-based are tagged as such, while other sources that are missing specific license details are flagged as Unknown. Unknown doesn’t mean the content isn’t open, just that you need to consult the source materials for the details. |
Record
Record Fields
As records are ingested into OSDP, an assessment is performed on the source metadata to determine if and how it relates to key OSDP classification criteria. These fields can further be used to filter Search Result Sets.
* Fields prefaced with a * are available as both Keyword Search and Advanced Search Filters. All others are available only as Advanced Search Filters.
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| *Content Category | Code | 1 | Each record in OSDP is assigned a specific Content Category defining its type of content (e.g., Dataset, Publication, etc.). The Search Result Set Tabs permit all Content Categories to be seen merged (All tab) or limited by selecting a tab by Content Category name. |
| Dataset Category | Code | 0-M | This external classification of dataset content is restricted in its use to Dataset Aggregators from which OSDP ingests records. |
| *Development Category | Code | 0-M | OSDP value-added classification of the records by the type of development activity they are related to, set based on context and the metadata content in the record. |
| *Topic | Code | 0-M | High-level categorization of records by valued component based on context and the metadata content in the record. |
| Refined Topic | Hierarchy | 0-M | A more detailed assessment of the aspects of cumulative effects that could be relevant for each record, based on context and the metadata content in the record. |
Resources
Resource Fields
All content referenced in OSDP is housed by the Contributor Organization, and OSDP provides link(s) to this content in the form of Resources attached to a record (i.e., OSDP doesn’t make a copy of this content or service, but rather points back to the latest content the Contributor is providing).
Apart from Content Collections that typically just point to internal OSDP records, content for all other Content Categories has between one and many attached resources. Depending on the context, a resource could link back to a Contributor’s landing page, a downloadable file, a web map service, etc.
The following metadata fields are held on each referenced resource.
* Fields prefaced with a * are available as both Keyword Search and Advanced Search Filters. All others are available only as Advanced Search Filters.
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| *Resource Format | Code | 1 | Context-sensitive content format (e.g., File extension/format, map service type, etc.) |
| *Resource Language | Code | 1-M | The languages supported by the resource’s linked content. |
| Resource Name | Text | 1 | Freeform description of the resource. |
| Resource Protocol | Code | 1 | Protocol used when accessing the resource. |
| *Resource Type | Code | 1 | Contributor-provided classification of the expected resource content. |
| Resource URL | URL | 1 | Link to where the Contributor service or content is located. |
Resource Summaries
The following rollups are also maintained at a record level, summarizing the overall resource contents.
| Field | Type | Occurs | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Available Functions | Code | 0-M | The types of OSDP record functions that are available, as listed on each Search Result Set Item of the Search Result Set. |
| Downloadable Count | Number | 1 | Number of resources that represent downloadable files on a record. |
| Viewable Count | Number | 1 | Number of resources representing separate viewable web pages on a record. |