Overview

In Opencast, metadata is stored in so-called metadata catalogs. For each event or series, an arbitrary number of such configurable metadata catalogs can be managed. A common set of metadata has been standardized to form a common basis (standard metadata), whereas administrators can configure Opencast to support other metadata sets (extended metadata).

This document provides an overview of Opencast's metadata capabilities and its configuration.

Standard Metadata

For both events and series, a common set of metadata is supported by Opencast out of the box. Since metadata catalogs are referenced from within media package, flavors can be used to identify a specific metadata catalog. The following flavors are treated by Opencast as standard metadata, meaning Opencast expects them to be present:

Opencast assumes specific metadata fields to be present in the standard metadata in means of defining hard-coded filters, table columns and search indices.

To adjust the standard metadata to your specific needs, you can configure them in etc/org.opencastproject.ui.metadata.CatalogUIAdapterFactory-episode-common.cfg and etc/org.opencastproject.ui.metadata.CatalogUIAdapterFactory-series-common.cfg.

For details on how to configure metadata catalogs, see the section Metadata Catalog Configuration.

As mentioned above, however, Opencast expects specific metadata fields to be present to work correctly. In case you want to map metadata specific to your use case, you might consider using the extended metadata capabilities of Opencast described in the next section.

Extended Metadata

For both events and series, Opencast supports an arbitrary number of customized metadata catalogs.

To add extended metadata catalogs, create a configuration file with a valid filename of the form org.opencastproject.ui.metadata.CatalogUIAdapterFactory-<name>.cfg in etc/. on the admin node.

For details on how to configure metadata catalogs, see the section Metadata Catalog Configuration.

Limitations:

Metadata Catalog Configuration

The metadata configuration file format can be logically split up into different parts:

Part 1: General catalog information

Configuration key Example Description
type events Two different types of catalog UI adapters may be configured, such for events and others for series.
organization mh_default_org A custom catalog definition is mapped 1:1 to an organization and is available to this one organization only.
flavor mycompany/episode The catalog must be of a certain flavor. For a events catalog, the flavor consists of the form type/subtype whereas for series you only need to define the subtype. Attention: For series catalogs, the type (the part before the slash '/') is used as element type.
title My Personal Catalog Name This is the title that is displayed in the UI. It should be something that is readable by humans.

Part 2: XML serialization information

The only supported serialization of catalogs is currently the XML file format. The file follows the recommendation of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.

Configuration key Example Description
xml.rootElement.name mycatalog The name of the XML root element
xml.rootElement.namespace.URI http://myorg.com/metadata/catalog The URI of the XML namespace of the root element

Namespace bindings

To properly serialize to XML each prefix has to be bound to an XML namespace. Multiple namespace bindings can be configured, each identified by its unique name.

Configuration key Example Description
xml.namespaceBinding.{name}.URI http://myorg.com/metadata/terms The URI of the XML namespace
xml.namespaceBinding.{name}.prefix myterms The prefix used to identify elements of the namespace

Part 3: Catalog fields configuration

{field-id} must be a unique identifier for each property for a given catalog and can be the same as the input or output id to make it easy to find.

Configuration key Example Description
property.{field-id}.inputID¹ title The id used to identify this property in the catalog e.g. The name of the property inside the xml file of a Dublin Core catalog. If an outputID is not specified then this inputID is used for both the catalog and the front end id. This value is mandatory.
property.{field-id}.outputID title The id used inside the json for this property. If this value is missing then the inputID will be used instead.
property.{field-id}.namespace http://purl.org/dc/terms/ The URL that represents the namespace for this property. Different properties in the same catalog can have different namespaces.
property.{field-id}.label¹ "EVENTS.EVENTS.DETAILS.METADATA.TITLE" or "Event Title" The label to show for this property in the UI. If there is a i18n support for a label that should be the value used so that it will be translated, if you don't mind it being locked to one translation just put that single value in.
property.{field-id}.type¹ text The type of the metadata field.
property.{field-id}.pattern yyyy-MM-dd Applies to date and time types for now. It is used to format their values using the java DateTimeFormatter values²
property.{field-id}.delimiter ; For mixed_text and iterable_text type fields, a string at which inputs into the corresponding fields are split into individual values for easier bulk entry of lists. The default is no delimiter, in which case no splitting takes place.
property.{field-id}.readOnly¹ false If the property can be edited in the UI or if it should only be displayed.
property.{field-id}.required¹ true If the property has to have a value before the metadata can be saved (the UI's save button will be disabled until all of the required fields are entered)
property.{field-id}.collectionID USERS The id of the list provider that will be used to validate the input in the backend. So for example entering a username that doesn't exist will throw an error in this case.
property.{field-id}.listprovider USERS The id of the list provider that will be used as a drop down option for that field. So for example using the USERS list provider means that in the front end the user will be able to choose the field value from the list of users in Opencast.
property.{field-id}.order 3 Defines the order of properties where this property should be oriented in the UI i.e. 0 means the property should come first, 1 means it should come second etc. Giving two properties the same number will cause them to be next to one another but doesn't guarantee one above or below the other.

¹ Mandatory field attribute

² See DateTimeFormatter

Field types

Type Description Example value in catalog Example value in UI JSON response example
boolean Represents a true / false value in the UI that is represented by a check box. false false
date A Java Date object that can include the year, month, day, hour, minute second ... and is formatted by the pattern value. 2014-12-10T16:29:43Z 2014-12-10
text A text input value for entering in one line of text. It supports more, it just won't increase in size for the interface. This is the Title This is the Title
text_long A text area which allows for more than 1 row of text Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. {
"id": "notesEpisode",
"readOnly": false,
"value": "",
"label": "Notes",
"required": false,
"type":"text_long"
}
iterable_text A text input value for entering in a list of text objects that are comma separated in the front end but stored separately in the catalog. Adam,Basil,Lukas value : ["Adam","Basil","Lukas"] {
"id": "contributor",
"readOnly": true,
"value": ["Adam", "Basil", "Lukas"],
"label": "Contributor(s)",
"required": false,
"type": "text"
}
start_date The start date portion of a Dublin Core Catalog Period. start=2014-11-04T19:00:00Z; end=2014-11-05T20:00:00Z; scheme=W3C-DTF; 2014-11-04
start_time The start time portion of a Dublin Core Catalog Period. start=2014-11-04T19:00:00Z; end=2014-11-05T20:00:00Z; scheme=W3C-DTF; 19:00:00
duration The duration of the event portion of a Dublin Core Catalog Period. start=2014-11-04T19:00:00Z; end=2014-11-05T20:00:00Z; scheme=W3C-DTF; 01:00:00

Workflow Configuration

Since the extended metadata don't have the dublincore/* flavor, a tagging operation for the archive has to be added for the extended catalogs. In our examples below, we use ext/episode as a flavor, so the following operation should be added to the workflows

<!-- Tag the extended metadata catalogs for publishing -->
<operation
    id="tag"
    description="Tagging extended metadata catalogs for archival and/or publication">
    <configurations>
        <configuration key="source-flavors">ext/*</configuration>
        <configuration key="target-tags">+archive</configuration>
    </configurations>
</operation>

If you want the extended metadata to be published the same way as the standard metadata, you can update the existing tagging operation for dublincore metadata the following way

<!-- Tag the incoming metadata catalogs for publishing -->
<operation
  id="tag"
  description="Tagging metadata catalogs for archival and publication">
  <configurations>
    <configuration key="source-flavors">dublincore/*,ext/*</configuration>
    <configuration key="target-tags">+archive,+engage-download</configuration>
  </configurations>
</operation>

Configuring the events publisher metadata field

The metadata field can be used in two ways, and its meaning varies slightly:

The configuration is done in the file: etc/org.opencastproject.ui.metadata.CatalogUIAdapterFactory-episode-common.cfg.

First option is the default one and the configuration is as follows:

property.publisher.inputID=publisher
property.publisher.label=EVENTS.EVENTS.DETAILS.METADATA.PUBLISHER
property.publisher.type=text
property.publisher.readOnly=true
property.publisher.required=false
property.publisher.order=16

To configure the second option:

property.publisher.inputID=publisher
property.publisher.label=EVENTS.EVENTS.DETAILS.METADATA.PUBLISHER
property.publisher.type=text
property.publisher.readOnly=false
property.publisher.required=true
property.publisher.listprovider=YOUR_LIST_PROVIDER
property.publisher.order=16

If you want to use the publishers as list provider, you must set up the provider in this way:

property.publisher.listprovider=EVENTS.PUBLISHER

In both cases, you can filter events by publisher.