Keywords Tab: Product

Adding keywords to your metadata record allows for the record to be found later through a search engine, keywords are the way to tag your projects or products. The mdEditor is designed using thesauruses that contain pre-determined keywords. These thesauruses create a 'controlled vocabulary' so that all SA staff adding metadata can adhere to the same standards, and future search results can return clear results of projects and products.

Quick Reference: Product Keywords Tab	Required?
ISO Topic Category	Required
GCMD Keywords	Best Practice

To add Keywords to your Metadata Record

1. Click “+ Add Thesaurus” on the right to add the different thesauruses.

2. Add keywords from the following pre-populated thesauruses.

3. If none of the keywords in the following categories are sufficient for tagging your record, you can create a custom thesaurus (see below for more information).

Product Required Keywords

ISO Topic Category (Required)

Because mdJSON metadata is based on the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) metadata standard, all LCC projects must select at least one ISO Topic Category. ISO topics were generally meant for spatial data so they might be a bit of a stretch, but do your best to find the best fit. mdEditor provides definitions of each ISO topic category if you hover over the ? icon.

ISO Topic List:

1. biota

2. boundaries

3. climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere

4. economy

5. elevation

6. environment

7. geoscientificInformation

8. health

9. imageryBaseMapsEarthCover

10. intelligenceMilitary

11. inlandWaters

12. location

13. oceans

14. planningCadastre

15. society

16. structure

17. transportation

18. utilitiesCommunication

Tip: Biota and environment are probably the best fit for most SA projects.

GCMD Keywords (Best Practice)

GCMD stands for Global Change Master Directory and these keywords are maintained by NASA. Look for useful keywords in the GCMD Science Keywords. There are GCMD Platforms and Instruments Keywords but they are unlikely to apply to SA products.

Best Practice: Check the "Full Path" checkbox to save the full path of the keyword to your metadata. This will maintain the category and context of the specific keywords chosen.

Custom Thesaurus

If any of your desired keywords do not appear in the existing thesauruses, you can add them via the custom thesaurus. Use a custom thesaurus only for keywords that are not available in an existing thesaurus.

You cannot add keywords to an existing thesaurus; you can only add keywords in a custom thesaurus.

You cannot save a custom thesaurus in mdEditor.

Tip: If you have a consistent set of keywords that you use across your projects or products, you could add these to a "template project" record in mdEditor and then modify the specific keywords you need for each entry. See the workflow section for more info about using template records.

Look for useful keywords in the GCMD Science Keywords. GCMD Science keywords are the most applicable to SA. There are GCMD Platforms and Instruments keywords, but they are unlikely to apply to SA.

Keywords and ScienceBase

Keywords vs. Tags

mdEditor uses the term "keywords" while ScienceBase uses the term "tags."

Keywords edited in mdEditor will not overwrite keywords stored in ScienceBase (i.e. sbJSON) because ScienceBase only adds to the list of tags. If you do not want obsolete keywords/tags to show up on ScienceBase, manually delete these in ScienceBase. mdJSON and the SA Science Catalog, however, will reflect any changes made in mdEditor.

Imported Keywords

If you imported your product metadata from ScienceBase, then the ScienceBase tags are each created as a keyword in a custom thesaurus.

Controlled vocab list in ScienceBase cannot connect to mdEditor. The selected keywords for any specific record will import into mdEditor, but the saved list will not be.

Example ISO Topic Category keyword entry