Metadata Editor beta FAQ

[Jill_Saligoe-Simmel]

What is the primary goal of the Metadata Editor beta?

To improve the quality of metadata for authoritative content used by organizations and shared publicly while simplifying and minimizing the effort required effort by data owners, publishers, and curators.

What functionality should I expect in the public beta?

Our target for the public beta is functional equivalency with the existing Metadata Editors. It does not include enhancements to publication workflows across products. Functional equivalency is a precursor to our making enhancements in a unified way across the ArcGIS system.

Is it only for ArcGIS Online?

Eventually, the experience will be unified across the ArcGIS system. Today, the Metadata Editor beta is only available in ArcGIS Online for organizations that have enabled metadata.

How do I use the Metadata Editor beta to complete a metadata record?

Light-weight guidance is available in this blog post. The ArcGIS Online documentation covers both the current (classic) editor and Metadata Editor beta. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the new interface, its functionality, and any other observations you would like to share.

What is the roadmap for the Metadata Editor beta?

Unifying the Metadata Editor across our core products is a long-term project. The public beta is part of the ArcGIS Online summer 2023 release. Later phases will move to a public beta in other products and full integration across all products. We will work in a step-wise fashion to ensure the transition is smooth from existing editors.

[StefanieWenker]

I am super excited that there is an easier user experience for metadata editing in ArcGIS Online. It says in the "what functionality can I expect" that there are currently no enhancements for publication workflows. Is this something that is on the roadmap for either Metadata Editor beta group, or from a different group at Esri?

[JenniferSmits]

Yes, we really love the new editor. Much easier to use. Since you asked for feedback, I would love to see the ability for the administrator to vary the 'essential' elements. e.g. include organisation and contact details, spatial reference and licence (unless you already can?). Thanks!

[ErinNovakovich]

@JenniferSmits that is a great idea! Speaking as a chairperson trying to coordinate a multi-agency effort to generate metadata that meets a minimum standard, something like this would greatly help an organization create functional metadata for their online content that is able to be ingested into a statewide portal.

[Jill_Saligoe-Simmel]

Hi @JenniferSmits, thanks I've captured your input. It sounds like you'd like to auto-populate certain metadata values across all items in your organization, is this correct? You included:

• Organization contact details
• Spatial reference
• License

Do you have other metadata elements you would add to this list?

[JenniferSmits]

Thank you @Jill_Saligoe-Simmel for replying 😍. I didn't actually mean auto populate metadata values across all items, but that is a TOTALLY AMAZING idea!  I simply just meant a customisable essentials editor, e.g. the ability vary the blank fields that the user is prompted to fill in on the 'essential metadata' tab. But default metadata values for our organisation would also be great.

• Default populated:
  • Citation Contacts/Resource Info Contacts -> Name, Organization name, Position, role, email address, postal address, phone number (generic to our org)
  • Credit (Attribution): "Legal Organisation Name"
  • Constraints - Use Limitations: "Internal organisation item unless approval from data custodian to be released or shared".
  • Bounding box: Our State Boundary Extent
  • Metadata Language = English, Country = Australia
• Essential Metadata Prompts we are interested in (or ability to customise the list at administrator level), include:
  • Spatial reference
  • Resource info contacts
  • Citation and citation contacts
  • Constraints Use Limitations (Licence Info e.g. CCBY4.0)
  • Bounding Box
  • Resource update frequency and publish dates
  • Resource details - status (current, deprecated etc)

Thank you.

[FredericGoulet1]

Really neat! 

Any chance that the metadata editor be integrated down the road in an ArcGIS SDK so we could embed it in our custom applications ?