Metadata Policy

Full Metadata Guidelines

We aim to provide access to collection materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, steward, and are represented in our holdings. When providing feedback on Texas ScholarWorks (TSW) materials, please include a URL to the relevant item whenever possible.

All metadata in TSW, with the exception of abstracts, are released under CC0 1.0, Public Domain Dedication. This means the metadata from TSW is dedicated to the public domain and all rights to the work worldwide under copyright law have been waived. The text of abstracts is owned by the authors or publishers. Use of abstracts should be governed by the copyright law in your jurisdiction. 

Submitting works to TSW requires a minimum set of submitter-supplied descriptive information (or metadata). This metadata will be indexed and used in both the search and browse functions of TSW. In addition, the metadata will be made available for external search engines, such as Google.

For complete information about available metadata fields including input guidelines, please see our full metadata guidelines. For more general information about how to enter items into TSW, see our general metadata guidelines.

Required Metadata

Title: A name given to the work.

Creator: The name of the person(s), institution, group, or agent primarily responsible for making the work.

Date: A single date indicating when the work was created or published.

Department: The name of creator's or submitter's academic department or affiliation.

Subject/keywords: The topic(s) of the work. At least one subject/keyword is required.

Type: The nature of the work being submitted.

Collection: The collection in TSW the work belongs to.

Access: Information indicating whether access to a work is restricted or unrestricted.

Additional metadata fields are also available, increasing the discoverability of a work. These may or may not be applicable to all submitted works and are not required.

Recommended Optional Metadata (not an exhaustive list)

Abstract or description: Highly recommended for all works.

Publisher: Highly recommended for previously published or disseminated works.

Sponsor: Highly recommended for works based on work sponsored or supported by an external agency or organization.

Primary language of work: Highly recommended for all text-based or A/V works.

Additional contributors: Recommended for all works with additional contributors like editors or advisors.

Series and report number: Recommended for works in a series (e.g. a working paper series).

Additional identifiers: Recommended for works with an identifier like an ISBN, ISSN, or DOI for the publisher's version of the work.

Copyright owner: Recommended for all works.

Additionally, some metadata will be automatically generated by the software used by TSW at the point of submission including, size of work, format of work, date and time of deposit, and a persistent URL to the work.