This unit currently focuses on metadata creation and remediation for the Digital Collections (DC) platform.

The unit is comprised of:

DC is built on Samvera Hyrax (https://hyrax.samvera.org/), an open-source digital repository framework, and locally customized and managed by The Ohio State University Libraries.

Documentation:

Workflow: - Obsolete

Ideally, projects intended for DC should be planned from start to finish in collaboration with Metadata Initiatives, IT, Preservation & Digitization, and Copyright Services to ensure the quality and completeness of DC records. It is more efficient to handle the workflow holistically as opposed to correcting records after they are ingested. A typical workflow for optimal collaboration could follow this structure:

  1. Initial project consultation - This consultation with the Metadata Initiatives will tentatively help identify the project's specific metadata, technical, and copyright issues. As a result of this consultation, preliminary metadata will be created and custom documentation may be provided. Typical consultation questions include:

    1. What kinds of objects are included? → Resource Type (dc:type), Genre (vra:workType), and Format (dc:format)

    2. Who created and/or published the objects? Is it the same individual or group for all records in the collection? → Creator (dc:creator) and/or Publisher (dc:publisher)

    3. When were the objects created, published, and or copyrighted? → Date Created (dcterms:created), Date Issued (dcterms:issued), and/or Date Copyrighted (dcterms:dateCopyrighted)

    4. How should the objects be represented in DC, e.g. complex objects?

    5. Is there a deadline for the project, e.g. donor request or corresponding event? Note: Units should plan in advance for event-based digital projects in DC.

    6. Is digitization being done by Preservation & Digitization or elsewhere?

    7. Should records be public, restricted by IP range, or private?

  2. Contact with other units - Project manager should initiate contact, as necessary, with Copyright Services, IT, and Preservation & Digitization regarding preliminary project specifications.

  3. Digitization - As works are digitized, technical metadata is embedded, e.g. EXIF for image files, or supplied by vendor, e.g. audio and video files. Any technical metadata created in spreadsheets by Preservation & Digitization will get transferred to Metadata Initiatives. Note: PREMIS metadata may be generated at this stage which should be ingested with the applicable work. However, preservation metadata and other technical metadata should be restricted to logged in users.

  4. Metadata creation - As the unit creates metadata for the collection, the Metadata Initiatives will provide feedback.

  5. Rights review - requires collaboration between the unit, Copyright Services, and the Metadata Initiatives to ensure the correct rights information is applied. The criteria for rights review is:

  6. Metadata review & augmentation - After the metadata is prepared, the unit will send it to the Metadata Initiatives for review and augmentation. Typical work is:

  7. Batch ingest - Records are imported into DC

  8. Quality review - After ingest, Metadata Initiatives will complete a quality review to verify that records and their applicable files have ingested correctly and access settings are correct.