An initiative by the CMDI task force aimed at making it easier to produce high quality metadata with enhanced interoperability within CLARIN
What are core components, and why do we need them?
“Core components” refers to a newly implemented family of components and profiles developed by the CMDI task force. They can be considered an implementation of CMDI “best practices” and aim to make it easier to use or start using CMDI. An explicit objective is to take away or at least strongly reduce the need for custom modelling. The core components are designed to be well supported by CLARIN infrastructure components such as the VLO, but also to provide good interoperability with broader research infrastructure standards and practices. For instance, export to Datacite, Schema.org and other standards and technologies are envisioned to be implemented and become available ‘off-the-shelf’ for users of core components.
What distinguishes a core component from other components?
Technically, core components are not much different from other components. The power of the core components lies in their combined use in profiles for specific use cases. Furthermore, the CLARIN infrastructure developers will be able to pay special attention to the ‘performance’ of core components based profiles in metadata infrastructure components such as the VLO, and will do so in future iterations of the core components.
Which core components based profiles exist/are planned?
See the overview of components and profiles currently in development
Do I need to switch to core components?
It is not required to switch to core components, and you can safely choose to continue using CMDI metadata in the way you have. Core components are implemented ‘on top of’ the CMD framework, which remains the basis for metadata support and interoperability within CLARIN.
How much effort is it to ‘switch’ to core components?
This obviously strongly depends on the specific use case. If your metadata is stored as CMDI ‘natively’ based on a custom profile, you will need to select a new, fitting profile, and convert all of your metadata which might not be a trivial task. However, there are scenarios in which it is much easier to switch. For instance, if you metadata is generated by export or crosswalk, and is not using too many fields, there is a good chance that you will be able to refactor your solution to use one of the provided profiles.
Who can make new core components and/or profiles?
Members of the CMDI task force currently develop and maintain the core components. The task force also decides which new or existing components and profiles get included in the ‘core component’ group and get the ‘recommended’ status. Anyone with interest in contributing to this task is welcome to join. There will likely be a procedure to suggest changes to existing components or request new ones.
Can I combine core components with other components in the same profile?
Yes, nothing stops you from combining core components with other components, for example custom components that you need to represent information that is specific to your use case. Doing this might mean that you will still get many of the benefits of using an ‘official’ core components profile.
I have found some core components that look useful on the whole. However, some of the elements don’t quite fit my resources. How to proceed?
The core components are designed to be broadly applicable and therefore often allow for more information than might be applicable in a single use case. This does not mean that all fields within a component are mandatory or even necessarily recommended. By design, the core components “accept” relatively sparse information. In case the availability of certain elements is problematic at the metadata creation stage, for example in the case of manual metadata creation, we suggest hiding the ‘extraneous’ elements in the editing environment.
Do you have any other questions or would like to contribute to the core components initiative? Let us know by sending a message to cmdi@clarin.eu!