Descriptive Standards

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ICA-AtoM implements unqualified Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1. Dublin Core-specific sections of this manual are available at Dublin Core.

While the Digital Collections Builder is designed around the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's international descriptive standard, it is intended to be flexible enough to accommodate other practices based on other (national or local) descriptive standards. In addition to including the rights element included in Dublin Core, DCB also incorporates the PREMIS rights elements to allow users wanting more robust rights management to link rights related restrictions to resource descriptions and digital objects.

DCB also incorporates the standards of the International Council on Archives as edit templates, including:


 * The International Standard Archival Authority Records (Corporate bodies, Persons, Families) ISAAR for authority records
 * The International Standard for Describing Institutions with Archival Holdings ISDIAH for describing organizations (actors that hold library materials)

Support
"Support" means that users of another standard should be able to use DCB to produce outputs that are compliant with that standard. This includes the ability to enter data in fields that represent all of the data elements required by the standard, interact with (view, edit, search) data in ways structured by and labeled according to the terms of the standard, and output (print, export) data in formats compliant with the standard.

Design principles
To implement support for other standards:


 * Map the data elements of the target standard to the related ICA or DCMI standard and - via this "metadata crosswalk" - to the underlying database architecture in DCB/Qubit
 * Use existing DCB fields wherever the crosswalk establishes a direct correlation between elements in Dublin Core/etc. and target standards
 * Create "custom fields" for all other elements in the target standard using DCB's "property" database table (where "type" is the name of the element and "value" is the data itself)
 * Create additional PHP methods for managing the data as required
 * Add user interface templates (view and edit pages) using page divisions and field labels based on the structure and terminology of the target standard

Adding support for another standard requires a developer to work on the underlying software code. Once support has been added, however, DCB provides an interface allowing administrators to easily select their preferred standard and to switch between the various standards.

Other (non-ICA) standards currently supported
Users of other descriptive standards should be aware that this manual is generally based on the DCMI, PREMIS, and relevant ICA standards for its examples and screenshots. Standard-specific sections are noted below.

Rules for Archival Description (RAD)


RAD is maintained by the Canadian Council of Archives and is available at http://www.cdncouncilarchives.ca/archdesrules.html. RAD-specific sections of this manual are available at Rules for Archival Description.

Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS)
The MODS standard is available at Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS). Currently DCB supports the Digital Library Federation second level of adoption for MODS (see DLF Aquifer MODS Guidelines Levels of Adoption). MODS-specific sections of this manual are available at MODS