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Documenting Distribution Formats

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Overview

The purpose of this help page is to provide basic guidelines for metadata authors who need to document the Distribution Format field. This document is mainly geared towards documenting Data Sets; however, the guidelines generally apply as well to other Catalog Item types.

General Guidelines

The main purpose of the Distribution Format field is to document the underlying format of the distribution; in the case of Data Sets, the format of the data itself.

The Distribution Format field is meant to be as specific as possible. For example, documenting a format as "Raster" or "Image" is too general. Specific formats such as "JPEG" or "GeoTIFF" are more helpful.

InPort implements the Distribution Format field as a controlled list:

If you need to document a format which is missing from this list, please contact InPort Support to have the new format added to the list.

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Distribution Format is Not Compression

If the distribution is compressed (e.g. a ZIP or TAR file), the compression format should not be documented in Distribution Format. Use the Compression field to document the compression format instead. The Distribution Format should indicate the format of the underlying data, not its compression.

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Distribution Format is Not Data Presentation Form

The data presentation form (e.g. "Tabular Digital Data") is a general description of the type of data and should not be used for the Distribution Format field. Use the Data Presentation Form field under Data Set Information instead.

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Distribution Format is Not Character Encoding

Do not use the Distribution Format field to document the character set encoding of the data, such as ASCII or UTF-8. If information about the character set encoding is important to document, use the general Description field for the Distribution.

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Raw Text Formats

If the format of the data is simply raw text, you can use "Text (Unstructured)" as the Distribution Format.

If you have structured text that is delimited, please select the most specific value from the list such as "Text (Tab Delimited)" or "CSV - Comma Separated Values (Text)". If your specific structured text format is not available, please use "Text (Structured)" or request an addition to the list.

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Distribution Format is Not a Data Accession

Accession packages are frequently provided as a standalone file, containing multiple folders and files of data, metadata, and other pertinent information.

When a Distribution is an accession package, document the type of compression in the Compression field. Document the underlying format of the data file(s) within the accession package in the Distribution Format field.

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Databases as a File Format

A Database can be a file format, if the actual Database itself is what is being distributed. For example, data can be distributed as a Microsoft Access Database file.

However, if a Database is simply the means by which the data is distributed (i.e. as a distribution endpoint), do not document the database as the Distribution Format; document the format of the underlying data itself.

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Services

InPort does not currently support a comprehensive way to document Services, as NOAA-level standards and best practices for service metadata are still emerging and under discussion. In the meantime, metadata authors can still document partial service information through the Distribution Information section.

Distributions that are provided via Web Services can be documented as such under Distribution Format. However, it would be impractical to include every potential type of Web Service in InPort.

For this reason, we have only included the most commonly used Web Services within NOAA in InPort's controlled list. If the Web Service you would like to document does not appear in InPort's list, please use "Web Service (Other)".

If you believe that a Web Service type is missing in InPort, which would be frequently used by metadata authors in NOAA, please contact InPort Support to have the Web Service considered for addition to the list.

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Handling Multiple Formats

At this time, InPort does not support documenting multiple formats for a single Distribution.

As an alternative, consider documenting the primary format of the data in the Distribution Format field. Or, use a separate Distribution to document each relevant format.

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