Shared Components

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Contacts
• Controlled Keyword Thesauri
• Coordinate Reference Systems
• Instruments and Platforms
• Managing Shared Components

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Overview

Shared Components are metadata entities or "snippets" that are commonly used across many metadata records. Rather than duplicating this information in every record, they are managed as Shared Components that can be re-used and updated for all records in a centralized manner.

Currently, the following Shared Components are supported in InPort:

• Contacts
• Controlled Keyword Thesauri
• Coordinate Reference Systems
• Instruments
• Platforms

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Contacts

Contacts provide a means for documenting a Person or an Organization, and that party's relevant contact information. Most commonly, Contacts are used in InPort to designate Support Roles, such as the Point of Contact, the Principal Investigator, or the Distributor, etc.

Contacts can also refer to a "position". For example, the Point of Contact for a metadata record may change over time, or may be multiple people. In this situation, some organizations use a service account which forwards to the appropriate party. This can be represented in InPort as a Contact Position, rather than Person or Organization.

If you need to use a Contact for your metadata that does not currently exist, please contact your organization's InPort Librarian.

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Controlled Keyword Thesauri

Controlled Keyword Thesauri in InPort represent controlled vocabularies used to describe or categorize metadata, which are natively supported by the system. Please see the Keyword Help Guide for more information on how to use Keywords in InPort.

Note that Controlled Keyword Thesauri cannot be modified by Librarians. If a specific keyword you need is missing or is invalid, please contact InPort Support.

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Coordinate Reference Systems

Coordinate Reference Systems are used to document spatial information in metadata. InPort already supports an extensive list of widely used systems; however, if the CRS you would like to use is not available, please contact your organization's InPort Librarian to add it to the list.

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Instruments and Platforms

Instruments and Platforms are used to document acquisition information in metadata. If the Instrument or Platform you would like to use is not available, please contact your organization's InPort Librarian to add it to the list.

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Managing Shared Components

You must have a Librarian role to modify Shared Components in InPort.

To add or edit a Shared Component:

1. Login to InPort.
2. In the Admin menu, select Components.
3. Select the Component Type that you want to modify. (Note that Controlled Keywords cannot be modified).
4. For the purposes of this example, we will use Contacts, although the process for adding/editing all Component Types is roughly the same.
5. To modify an existing Contact, browse through the alphabetical list, or use the search box.
6. To create a new Contact, click the Add New Contact button.
7. Fill in or update the relevant fields. Note that modifying a Shared Component will update all records across InPort which refer to that Shared Component, so please ensure the information you enter is completely accurate and up-to-date.
8. Click Save Changes.

Note: Some Component Types (i.e. Instruments and Platforms) have an approval status. When one of these components is created, it will be in Unapproved status by default. This flag is only used to assist InPort Admins in curating additions to the system, and does not affect the visibility or usability of these components in metadata records.

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