Contributing to the Catalog

The Metadata Standards Catalog is community-maintained. If you spot information that is incorrect or out-of-date, or can fill in a gap in the information here, please help improve the Catalog by contributing your changes. There are only a few simple steps to follow:

  1. If you have not already done so, read through our Terms of use. A key point is that the information in the Catalog is made available under a Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, so by making a contribution you are waiving intellectual property rights over that contribution.

  2. Assuming you are happy to proceed, remind yourself of the scope of the Catalog, to make sure the information you want to contribute fits within it.

  3. Sign in to the Catalog using your Research Data Alliance website account, or one of the other methods provided.

    The first time you do this, you will be asked to set up a Catalog account. We only ask for a minimal amount of information: just what we need in order to operate the Catalog.

  4. Once you have signed in, you will see extra buttons on Catalog pages allowing you to edit them. If you need to add new records, you will find the links you need on the homepage.

Contributing via the API

You can use our API to access the records in the Catalog programatically, without credentials.

In order to make changes using the API, you will need an API account; this is not the same as the account you would use to sign in to the site. Please contact the maintainers if you wish to apply for an API account.

Contributing to the codebase

The Catalog is Open Source (MIT/Expat licensed), so if you spot a problem with how the site is operating or would like to suggest a new feature, please let us know using our Issue tracker. If you are willing and able to implement the fix or feature, you can contribute your changes in the usual way by editing the code on GitHub or a local clone of the repository, and opening a Pull request.