How to Manage Published Metadata

Metadata is managed through the Administration tab on the Geoportal's main menu. A publisher user can only view and manage the records he/she owns, whereas a Geoportal administrator can view and manage all the records uploaded by all publishers and him/herself.

The Manage Metadata page, available when a publisher or administrator clicks the "Administration" tab, has four parts:

Links at the Top

At the top of the page, just above the "Manage Metadata" text, there are four links. The Manage link is activated by default, and brings users to the Manage Metadata page. The Create link directs users to an interface where they can create metadata for a resource through the Metadata Editor online form. The Upload link directs users to a page where they can designate a metadata record to be uploaded and published to the Geoortal. The Validate link directs to a page where users can browse to a file, click "Validate", see what standard the Geoportal is associating with the document, and see missing/incorrect metadata elements that would prevent the record from publishing. The name of the file is shown above the validation message so users remember which file they were validating and can browse to it again for uploading.

Manage Metadata Search Fields

The Manage Metadata Search allows publishers to search through the metadata they have published to the Geoportal. Under the "Manage Metadata" text, there are six fields that help organize the list of metadata associated with the logged in user. By filling these fields with terms, users can filter what metadata records are returned for managing. Each field is described below, and corresponds to a column in the metadata records table further down the page. Filtering occurs when the user clicks "Search":

Search Parameter	Description
Document title	By typing text in this field, a list of records is returned that contain the input word in their title tags.
Document UUID	By typing a document's UUID in this field, the record with that UUID in its file identifier tags is returned.
Document owner	Select a publisher from this drop down list to search for records that are owned by that publisher. If you are not a Geoportal administrator, this drop down list will only populate with your username.
Approval status	Select a status from this drop down list to search for records that have a status of Posted, Approved, Incomplete, Disapproved, or Reviewed. If the "Any" option is selected, then records will be returned regardless of their status.
Publication method	Select a publication method from this drop down list to search for records that were published to the Geoportal by a certain method: Any: records will be returned regardless of their publication method Editor: records published through the Geoportal's Metadata Editor online form Upload: records published through the "Upload" link Harvester: records published by harvesting from another resource Batch: records published through the "GPT Publish Client" tool Other: records published by a means other than Editor, Upload, or Harvester
Update date	By specifying a date range, the Geoportal will return records that were updated between the start date and end date specified. The date is taken from the Date column in the metadata records table further down the page, and represents the last time a change was made to the status of the metadata document.

Execute Actions for Records

Below the search fields section, there is a drop down box where publishers can dictate specific actions that change the status of selected metadata records in the metadata records table. The actions available from the drop down list are different for publishers and administrators. The first four actions are available to both sets of users; the last four are available only to administrators. Actions are carried out when a user checks the box next to one or more records in the metadata records table, chooses an action, and clicks the "Execute Action" button.

Actions Available to Publishers

Set as Posted	Posted documents have not yet been approved, and therefore cannot be discovered through the Geoportal search interface.
Set as Incomplete	Marks the document as not having sufficient information to be approved.
Delete	Deletes the document from the Geoportal.
Set Access Level	Allows the publisher to determine what groups should be allowed access the metadata record. For more information, see How to Restrict Access to Metadata

Additional Actions Available to Administrators

Set as Approved	Marks the document as searchable through the Geoportal interface.
Set as Disapproved	Marks the document as being reviewed and not approved by the Geoportal administrator. Disapproved documents are not discoverable through the Geoportal search interface.
Set as Reviewed	Marks the document as having been reviewed by the Geoportal administrator, but not yet approved.
Transfer Ownership	Allows the administrator to select the document's new owner from a drop down list that appears below the actions drop down box. Changing the ownership of a record will not change its status or its update date.

Metadata Records Table

This table lists all of the records returned as a result of the Manage Metadata Search Field criteria. Above the table is text indicating how many records were returned and how many are displaying on the page. If many records are returned, results may span more than one page, and can be navigated using the page number boxes next to this text. There are eight headings in the table. The records in the table can be sorted according to the headings by clicking on the heading.

Each record has an empty box and also four buttons next to it. Select the record by clicking the box, and then choose an action to be executed from the "For selected records" drop down list above the table.

The four buttons next to each record provide additional functionality:

View	Opens a new window where the raw XML for the records will display.
Download	Allows the owner to download their metadata from the Geoportal into an XML format. The downloaded XML document can be imported in ArcCatalog with the original dataset or updated using external XML editors.
Edit	If the record was created through the metadata editor online form (the Create link), this button will reload the document in the metadata editor and it's information can be changed or updated.
Delete	Allows the owner of the metadata record to remove the selected document from the collection.

Validate Metadata

Validation is important because an invalid metadata document will not publish to the Geoportal. When you submit a record to be validated or published, the Geoportal first identifies the standard to which the record conforms. After identifying the standard, it uses the record's definition.xml file to determine what elements are mandatory. All mandatory elements must be present for the document to publish.

There are three ways to validate metadata in the Geoportal interface:

Attempt to publish the metadata and note validation errors if they result
Use the Validation option on the Upload metadata interface
Use the Validation option from the Validation link on the Administration page menu

This section addresses the third option, validating metadata from the Validate link on the Administration page menu. To use the Validation link, do the following:

Login to the Geoportal as a publisher
Click on the Administration tab
Click on the Validate link on the Administration page
On the Validate Metadata page, click the "Choose File" button and browse to a file on your machine.
Once the file is loaded, click the "Validate" button.
After a few moments, you will receive a message saying one of the following:
- Your document was validated successfully. This means that the record can be uploaded to the Geoportal without validation errors.
- An error message. There are many different errors, and in all error cases the document does not pass validation and therefore will not be publishable to the Geoportal in its current state. The document may fail validation because it is missing mandatory elements, the metadata schema is unrecognized, or the document itself cannot be parsed (the document may not be xml, or a valid schema).
To fix validation errors, click on the Administration tab and select "Create". Then select the standard to which your metadata should conform. On the Create metadata page, you will be able to see in bold italic what the mandatory elements are for that standard. Open your document in a text or xml editor, and check that you have filled out these mandatory elements as well in your document.