Formatting Your Bulk CSV

What is the CSV?

• The CSV is a set of comma separated values that displays as a spreadsheet. Each column in the spreadsheet captures a specific piece of metadata to be validated and imported by the repository bulk importer tool. The first row of the spreadsheet includes the titles of these columns:

• Each row in the CSV represents a single metadata record:

• In cases where a field can contain multiple entries (e.g., the creator fields), each entry should be separated by a soft carriage return (CMD+Alt+Enter on Macs, Shift+Enter on PCs). Multiple field entries should be aligned with corresponding metadata across columns, viz.:

Required Fields

• The repository metadata schema is based on the DataCite schema, and therefore includes the same required fields. If any of these fields are left empty, validation will fail:
  • resource_type.id (column C)
  • creators.type (column D)
  • creators.given_name (column E)
  • creators.family_name (column F)
  • title (column O)
  • publication_date (column Q)
  • description (column R)

Files

• For records to be paired with files, two options exist:
  • harvesting the file from an openly accessible URL on the internet
  • uploading the file from your hard drive to the bulk importer tool during the process of creating a new bulk import task
• In either case, the file should be linked to its corresponding metadata record by being identified in the spreadsheet's first column (filenames [column A]).
• If the file should be harvested from an openly accessible URL on the internet, the full URL should be included in column A:

• If the file is being uploaded to the bulk importer tool, the exact filename (including extension) should be included in column A:

Fields with Controlled Vocabularies

• For many fields in the metadata schema, the validator will only accept a specific set of terms. A list of these fields and the acceptable terms may be accessed here.