Keywords Tab: Project

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. mdEditor is designed using existing thesauruses that contain pre-determined keywords.

Quick Reference: Project Keywords Tab	Required?
ISO Topic Category	Required
SA Priority Category	Required
Science Topic Category	Required
Conservation Action Open Standard	Required, if applicable
Strategic Habitat Conservation Component	Required, if applicable
GCMD Keywords	Best Practice
Shared Priority Keywords	Best Practice

Add Keywords to your Project

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 project, you can add other keywords with a custom thesaurus (see below for more information).

SA Project 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, bu do your best to find the best fit. mdEditor provides definitions of each ISO topic category if you hover over the ? icon.

Choose all that apply. The ISO Topic list is as follows:

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 LCC projects.

SA Priority Area (Required)

Choose all that apply. The list of options includes the following:

1. Collaborative Partnerships

2. Landscape Conservation

3. At-risk Species

4. Data Management

5. Conservation Science Support

6. Climate Change

7. Social Science

8. Workforce Culture

9. Organization Operations and Standards

10. Communications

Science Topic (Required)

Choose all that apply. The list of options includes the following:

1. Climate Adaptation

2. Climate Mitigation

3. Climate Resiliency

4. Carbon Sequestration

5. Indigenous Knowledge

6. Decision Support

7. Biotechnology

8. Species Status Assessment Support

9. Genetics and eDNA

10. Habitat Connectivity

11. Wildlife Corridors

12. Diversity and Inclusion

13. Working Lands

14. Pollinators

15. Strategic Habitat Conservation

16. Landscape Conservation Design

17. Vulnerability Assessment

18. Ecosystem Services

19. Wildlife Health and Disease

20. Environmental Justice

21. Stakeholder Engagement

22. Human Dimensions

23. Policy

24. Economics

Conservation Action Open Standard (Required, if applicable)

The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation is a globally utilized nomenclature for conservation. Including these keywords helps to align the work of USFWS Science Applications with global conservation efforts and to utilize the shared resources of the Conservation Standards Network. The open standards keywords for conservation actions are as listed:

Land / Water Management  (1.0)
Site/Area Stewardship (1.1)
Ecosystem & natural process (re)creation (1.2)
Species Management  (2.0)
Species stewardship (2.1)
Species re-introduction & translocation (2.2)
Ex-situ conservation (2.3)
Awareness Raising  (3)
Outreach & communications (3.1)
Protests & Civil Disobedience (3.2)
Law Enforcement and Protection (4.0)
Detection & Arrest (4.1)
Criminal Prosecution & Conviction (4.2)
Non-Criminal Legal Action (4.3)
Livelihood, Economic, and Moral Incentives  (5)
Linked enterprises & alternative livelihoods (5.1)
Better products & management practices (5.2)
Market-base incentives (5.3)
Direct economic incentives (5.4)
Non-monetary values (5.5)
Conservation Designation and Planning  (6)
Protected area designation or acquisition (6.1)
Easements & Resource rights (6.2)
Land/Water use zoning & designation (6.3)
Conservation planning (6.4)
Site Infrastructure (6.5)
Legal & Policy Frameworks  (7)
Laws, regulations, & codes (7.1)
Policies & guidelines (7.2)
Research and Monitoring  (8)
Basic research & Status monitoring (8.1)
Evaluation, effectiveness measures & learning (8.2)
Education and Training  (9)
Formal education (9.1)
Training & individual capacity development (9.2)
Institutional Development  (10)
Internal organizational management & administration (10.1)
External organizational development & support (10.2)
Alliance & partnership development (10.3)
Financing conservation (10.4)

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 LCCs.

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. If a region or program finds the need for the additional of keywords to an existing thesaurus or the need for another thesaurus, please contact the FWS SA National Data Steward.

You cannot save a custom thesaurus in mdEditor.

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

Keywords and ScienceBase Tags

Keywords vs. Tags

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

Keywords edited in mdEditor will not overwrite keywords stored in sbJSON on ScienceBase because ScienceBase only adds to the list of tags. If you want to remove obsolete keywords/tags on ScienceBase, you will need to manually delete them in ScienceBase. mdJSON and the SA Science Catalog, however, will reflect the changes made in mdEditor.

Imported Keywords

If you imported your project metadata from ScienceBase, then the ScienceBase keywords are included in a custom thesaurus.

If your LCC already has a controlled vocab list in ScienceBase, unfortunately it cannot connect to mdEditor. The selected keywords for any specific record will import into mdEditor, but the saved list will not be.