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Describing a Repository

Basic Fields
Identifier
Funding Source
Services
Data Collections
Advanced Publishing Techniques
- How to use external vocabularies

Describing a Repository

In schema.org, we model a repository as both an schema:ResearchProject, a sub-class of an Organization, and a schema:Service. This double-typing gives us the most flexibility in describing the characteristics of the organization providing the service and the services offered by the organization.

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO"
  
}

The other fields you can use to describe the Organziation and the Service are:

schema:legalName should be the official name of the repository,
schema:name can be an acronym or the name typcially used for the repository,
schema:url should be the url of your repository's homepage,
schema:description should be text describing your repository,
schema:sameAs can be used to link the repository to other URLs such as Re3Data, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.,
schema:category can be used to describe the discipline, domain, area of study that encompasses the repository's holdings.

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "sameAs": [
        "http://www.re3data.org/repository/r3d1000000xx",
        "https://twitter.com/SDRO",
        "https://www.linkedin.com/company/123456789/"
    ],
  "category": [
    "Biological Oceanography",
    "Chemical Oceanography"
  ]
}

(See advanced publishing techniques for how to describe categories/disciplines in more detail than just simple text.)

If you are using the "@id" attribute for your Repository, and the provider of the repository's services is the same Organziation, you can specify the schema:provider of the schema:Service in this way:

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "category": [
    "Biological Oceanography",
    "Chemical Oceanography"
  ],
  "provider": {
    "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org"
  }
}

However, if your repository has a situation where multiple organizations act as the provider or you want to recognize a different organization as the provider of the repository's service, schema:provider can be used in this way:

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "category": [
    "Biological Oceanography",
    "Chemical Oceanography"
  ],
  "provider": [
    {
      "@type": "ResearchProject",
      "name": "SDRO Technical Office",
      "description": "We provide all the infrastructure for the SDRO"
      ...
    },
    {
      "@type": "ResearchProject",
      "name": "SDRO Science Support Office",
      "description": "We provide all the science support functionality for the SDRO"
      ...
    }
  ]
}

Adding additional fields of schema:ResearchProject:

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "category": [
    "Biological Oceanography",
    "Chemical Oceanography"
  ],
  "provider": {
    "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org"
  }
  "logo": {
    "@type": "ImageObject",
    "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org/images/logo.jpg"
  },
  "contactPoint": {
    "@type": "ContactPoint",
    "name": "Support",
    "email": "info@bco-dmo.org",
    "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org/about-us",
    "contactType": "customer support"
  },
  "foundingDate": "2006-09-01",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "123 Main St.",
    "addressLocality": "Anytown",
    "addressRegion": "ST",
    "postalCode": "12345",
    "addressCountry": "USA"
  }
}

If this ResearchProject, or Organization, has a parent entity such as a college, university or research center, that information can be provided using the schema:parentOrganization property:

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "category": [
    "Biological Oceanography",
    "Chemical Oceanography"
  ],
  "provider": {
    "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org"
  },
   "parentOrganization": {
     "@type": "Organization",
     "@id": "http://www.someinstitute.edu",
     "legalName": "Some Institute",
     "name": "SI",
     "url": "http://www.someinstitute.edu",
     "address": {
       "@type": "PostalAddress",
       "streetAddress": "234 Main St.",
       "addressLocality": "Anytown",
       "addressRegion": "ST",
       "postalCode": "12345",
       "addressCountry": "USA"
     }
   }
  }
}

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Describing a Repository's Identifier

Some organizations may have a persistent identifier (DOI) assigned to their organization from authorities like the Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data.org). The way to describe these organizational identifiers is to use the schema:identifier property in this way:

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/",
    "datacite": "http://purl.org/spar/datacite/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "category": [
    "Biological Oceanography",
    "Chemical Oceanography"
  ],
  "provider": {
    "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org"
  },
  "identifier": {
    "@type": "PropertyValue",
    "name": "Re3data DOI for this repository",
    "propertyID": "http://purl.org/spar/datacite/doi",
    "value": "10.17616/R37P4C",
    "url": "https://doi.org/10.17616/R37P4C"
  }
}

We add the datacite vocabulary to the @context because the Datacite Ontology available at http://purl.org/spar/datacite/ has URIs to describe a DOI, ORCiD, ARK, URI, URN - all identifier scheme that help for disamiguating identifiers. To properly disambiguate a globally unique identifier, 2 pieces of information are needed - 1) the identifier value and 2) the scheme that on which that identifier exists. Some examples of this concept for common identifiers are:

Scheme	Value
DOI	10.17616/R37P4C
ORCiD	0000-0002-6059-4651

When describing PIDs, it's important to include both of these pieces for downstream activities like searching and linking resources. FOor example, a user may want to query for all repositories with a DOI identifier or all Datasets authored by a researcher with an ORCiD. These types of filters become more difficult when only the URL to these identifiers are provided. The reason here is that there are multiple URLs for an persistent identifier. On example is the DOI:

http://doi.org/10.17616/R37P4C
https://doi.org/10.17616/R37P4C
http://dx.doi.org/10.17616/R37P4C
https://dx.doi.org/10.17616/R37P4C

So, the best practice is to provide the scheme and value for an identifier, but you can also provide a URL representation using the schema:url property.

Describing a Repository's Funding Source

To describe the funding source of a repository, you use the schema:funder property of schema:Organization:

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/",
    "datacite": "http://purl.org/spar/datacite/",
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "category": [
    "Biological Oceanography",
    "Chemical Oceanography"
  ],
  "provider": {
    "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org"
  },
   "parentOrganization": {
     "@type": "Organization",
     "@id": "http://www.someinstitute.edu",
     "legalName": "Some Institute",
     "name": "SI",
     "url": "http://www.someinstitute.edu",
     "address": {
       "@type": "PostalAddress",
       "streetAddress": "234 Main St.",
       "addressLocality": "Anytown",
       "addressRegion": "ST",
       "postalCode": "12345",
       "addressCountry": "USA"
     },
     "funder": {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "@id": "https://doi.org/10.13039/100000141",
      "legalName": "Division of Ocean Sciences",
      "alternateName": "OCE",
      "url": "https://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=OCE",
      "identifier": {
        "@type": ["PropertyValue", "datacite:ResourceIdentifier"],
        "propertyID": "DOI",
        "value": "10.13039/100000141",
        "url": "https://doi.org/10.13039/100000141"
      },
      "parentOrganization": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "@id": "http://doi.org/10.13039/100000085",
        "legalName": "Directorate for Geosciences",
        "alternateName": "NSF-GEO",
        "url": "http://www.nsf.gov",
        "identifier": {
          "@type": ["PropertyValue", "datacite:ResourceIdentifier"],
          "propertyID": "DOI",
          "value": "10.13039/100000085",
          "url": "https://doi.org/10.13039/100000085"
         },
        "parentOrganization": {
          "@type": "Organization",
          "@id": "http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001",
          "legalName": "National Science Foundation",
          "alternateName": "NSF",
          "url": "http://www.nsf.gov",
          "identifier": {
            "@type": ["PropertyValue", "datacite:ResourceIdentifier"],
            "propertyID": "DOI",
            "value": "10.13039/100000001",
            "url": "https://doi.org/10.13039/100000001"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

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Describing a Repository's Services

For repositories might offer services for accessing data as opposed to directly accessing data files. The schema:Service allows us to describe these services as well as repository searches, data submission services, and syndication services. In this first example, we describe a search service at the repository using schema:ServiceChannel.

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/",
    "datacite": "http://purl.org/spar/datacite/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  ...
  "availableChannel": [
    {
      "@type": "ServiceChannel",
      "serviceUrl": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org/search",
      "providesService": {
        "@type": "Service",
        "name": "SDRO Website Search",
        "description": "Search for webpages, datasets, authors, funding awards, instrumentation and measurements",
        "potentialAction": {
          "@type": "SearchAction",
          "target": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org/search?keywords={query_string}",
          "query-input": {
            "@type": "PropertyValueSpecification",
            "valueRequired": true,
            "valueName": "query_string"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

By specifying the schema:potentialAction, we create a machine-actionable way to execute searches.

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Describing a Repository's Data Collections

If your repository has a concept of a data collection, some grouping of a number of datasets, we can use the schema:DataCatalog to describe these collections using the schema:OfferCatalog. One exampel of a DataCatalog might be to group datasets by a categorization such as 'biological data' or 'chemical data'. Or a catalog could be grouped by instrument, parameter or whatever logical grouping a repository may have.

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/",
    "datacite": "http://purl.org/spar/datacite/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  ...
  "hasOfferCatalog": {
    "@type": "OfferCatalog",
    "name": "Sample Data Repository Resource Catalog",
    "itemListElement": [
      {
       "@type": "DataCatalog",
        "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org/collection/biological-data",
        "name": "Biological Data",
        "audience": {
          "@type": "Audience",
          "audienceType": "public",
          "name": "General Public"
        }
      },
      {
        "@type": "DataCatalog",
        "@id": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org/collection/geological-data",
        "name": "Geological Data",
        "audience": {
          "@type": "Audience",
          "audienceType": "public",
          "name": "General Public"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

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Advanced Publishing Techniques

How to publish resources for the categories/disciplines at repository services.

& How to use external vocabularies

The SWEET ontology defines a number of science disciplines and a repository could reference those, or another vocabuary's resources, by adding the vocabular to the @context attribute of the JSON-LD markup.

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/",
    "sweet-rel": "http://sweetontology.net/rela/",
    "sweet-kd": "http://sweetontology.net/humanKnowledgeDomain/"
  },
  "@type": ["Service", "ResearchProject"],
  "legalName": "Sample Data Repository Office",
  "name": "SDRO",
  "url": "https://www.sample-data-repository.org",
  "description": "The Sample Data Repository Service provides access to data from an imaginary domain accessible from this website.",
  "sweet-rel:hasRealm": [
    { "@id": "sweet-kd:Biogeochemistry" },
    { "@id": "sweet-kd:Oceanography" }
  ]
  
}

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DataRepository.md

DataRepository.md

Describing a Repository

Describing a Repository

Describing a Repository's Identifier

Describing a Repository's Funding Source

Describing a Repository's Services

Describing a Repository's Data Collections

Advanced Publishing Techniques

How to publish resources for the categories/disciplines at repository services.

& How to use external vocabularies

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Describing a Repository

Describing a Repository

Describing a Repository's Identifier

Describing a Repository's Funding Source

Describing a Repository's Services

Describing a Repository's Data Collections

Advanced Publishing Techniques

How to publish resources for the categories/disciplines at repository services.

& How to use external vocabularies