Custom Metadata Fields
Detailed overview of BERD-specific metadata fields and their usage.

Overview Search Guide API Guide Custom Fields

Our metadata model is based on the InvenioRDM metadata schema, extended with custom fields to account for specifics in the business and economics domains and custom resource types requirements.

The cardinality of each field expresses its required shape as expected by the REST API.

The abbreviation CV stands for Controlled Vocabulary.

For a detailed information on how to include custom fields in InvenioRDM in general, please see the section on custom fields in the metadata reference and the respective documentation on how to enable them.

Alternate Titles

Field Cardinality Description
alternative_title 0-1 An additional title of the record.
translated_title 0-1 A translation of the main title into another language.

Classification & Vocabulary

These fields use controlled vocabularies or keywords to classify research data.

Field Cardinality Description
research_fields 0-n, CV

Categorization of the record based on research areas. These include:

Business Administration
Economics
Psychology
Sociology
Political Science
Economic & Social History
Communication Sciences
Educational Research
Other
countries 0-n, CV Geographical focus of the data, selected from a list of countries.
The vocabulary is based on the EU's "Countries and territories" list.
companies 0-n Keywords identifying companies related to the data.
coverage_industry 0-n Keywords describing economic sectors or industries covered by the data.

Example:

"custom_fields": {
  "research_fields": [
    {
      "id": "http://www.berd-nfdi.de/vocabularies/researchfields/business-administration",
      "title": {
        "en": "Business Administration"
      }
    }
  ],
  "countries": [
    {
      "id": "http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/country/USA",
      "title": {
        "en": "United States"
      }
    }
  ],
  "companies": ["Google"],
  "coverage_industry": ["Information Technology"]
}
Please see consult these API responses for a comprehensive list of available research fields and countries.

Spatial & Temporal Detail

Field Cardinality Description
publication_places 0-n Specific geographical locations where the resource was originally published.
temporal_coverage 0-1 The time period covered by the data, formatted according to the Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF) Specification (e.g., 2020/2022).

Data Documentation

Variables

Field Cardinality Description
variables 0-n A list of technical variables within a dataset.

Variable Properties

Field Cardinality Description
name 1 The variable identifier or name.
description 1 A clear explanation of what the variable represents or measures.

Example:

"custom_fields": {
  "variables": [
    {
      "name": "age",
      "description": "Age of respondent in years"
    },
    {
      "name": "income",
      "description": "Annual household income in EUR"
    }
  ]
}

Administrative & Access Metadata

Contact Person

Field Cardinality Description
contact_person 0-1 Contact for inquiries regarding the record.

Contact Person Properties

Field Cardinality Description
name 1 Full name of the contact person.
email 1 Direct contact email address.

Example:

"custom_fields": {
  "contact_person": {
    "name": "Jane Smith",
    "email": "jane.smith@example.org"
  }
}

Access Providers

Field Cardinality Description
access_providers 0-n Organizations providing access to the dataset or its digitized parts.

Access Provider Properties

Field Cardinality Description
name 1 Organization name.
identifiers 0-n Organization identifiers.
digitized_resources 0-n Information about specific digitized resources provided by this organization.
Identifier Properties
Field Cardinality Description
scheme 1 Identifier scheme (e.g., "ror", "isni", "gnd").
identifier 1 The identifier value.

Digitized Resource Properties

Field Cardinality Description
titles 1-n Title(s) of the digitized resource. At least one title is required.
publication_date 1 Publication date of the resource in EDTF format.
issue 0-1 Issue number of the publication.
volume 0-1 Volume number of the publication.
identifiers 0-n Identifiers for the digitized resource (e.g., DOI, URN).
ocr_urls 0-n Links to OCR viewers for the digitized resource.
Title Properties
Field Cardinality Description
title 1 Title string (minimum 3 characters).
lang 0-1, CV Language of the title.
For details on the subfields, please refer to the InvenioRDM reference.
OCR URL Properties
Field Cardinality Description
url 1 Link to the resource manifests to viewed.
type 1 Type of OCR viewer ("iiif" or "mets"). Must be unique per ocr_urls.

Example:

"custom_fields": {
  "access_providers": [
    {
      "name": "Mannheim University Library",
      "identifiers": [
        {
          "scheme": "gnd",
          "identifier": "gnd:1136894608"
        }
      ],
      "digitized_resources": [
        {
          "titles": [
            {
              "title": "Handbuch der deutschen Aktien-Gesellschaften",
              "lang": {
                "id": "ger",
                "title": {
                  "en": "German"
                }
              }
            }
          ],
          "publication_date": "1897/1898",
          "volume": "01",
          "issue": "1897/1898",
          "identifiers": [
            {
              "scheme": "urn",
              "identifier": "urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-dighop-1064"
            }
          ],
          "ocr_urls": [
            {
              "url": "https://digi.bib.uni-mannheim.de/mets/urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-dighop-1064",
              "type": "mets"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}