Metadata status: capturing the lifecycle of a metadata record

Date	2011/12/12
Contact(s)	Simon Pigot
Last edited	2011-12-12T19:10:00
Status	in progress
Assigned to release	2.7
Resources	Resources available
Ticket #	#XYZ

Overview

Metadata records have a lifecycle that typically goes through one or more states. eg when a record is created and edited by an 'Editor' user it is in the 'Draft' state. Whilst it is reviewed by a 'Content Reviewer' user it would typically be in a 'Submitted' state. If the record is found to be complete and correct by the 'Content Reviewer' it would be in the 'Approved' state and may be made available for casual search and harvest by assigning privileges to the GeoNetwork 'All' group. Eventually, the record may be superseded or replaced and the state would be 'Retired'. At present GeoNetwork doesn't have a formal process by which the state of the record can be captured. This makes it more difficult to manage and administer metadata records. This proposal adds:

• state (or status) to records in GeoNetwork: 'Unknown', 'Draft', 'Submitted', 'Approved', 'Rejected', 'Retired'. The status is held in a database table called MetadataStatus. Extra states can be added to this table if required.
• two status change action hooks (in Java) that can be used by sites to provide specific behaviours: The first action (statusChange) is called when status is changed by a user eg. when 'Draft' records are set to 'Submitted' and could be used for example to send notifications to other users affected by this change. The second action (onEdit) is called when a record is edited and saved and could be used for example to reset records with an 'Approved' status to 'Draft' status. A default set of actions is provided. These can be customised or replaced by sites that wish to provide different or more extensive behaviour.

Proposal Type

• Type: GUI Change, Core Change
• App: GeoNetwork
• Module: eg. Kernel, Data Manager, Metadata Import, Lucene Index, Search Interface

Voting History

• Not yet proposed for voting.

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Motivations

GeoNetwork already has some components that could be used to help define a metadata workflow. These are the user profiles that give different levels of privilege over a metadata record eg. only a content reviewer (or administrator) profile user can assign privileges to a metadata record that would allow an unregistered user to see the record in search or, to put it another way, only a content reviewer can assign privileges to the special GeoNetwork groups 'All' or 'Internet'

This proposal adds to these components with:

• a status value for any metadata record describing its current state in a lifecycle that ranges from 'Draft' or 'Unknown' through 'Submitted', 'Approved', 'Rejected' and 'Retired'. All status changes are kept in the MetadataStatus table with the most recent status change being the current status. These states are localized and extra states can be added by adding additional status values to the 'StatusValues' and 'StatusValuesDes' tables.
• Users with different profiles can set the status on one record through the 'Other Actions' menu or any number of selected records through the 'Actions on selected records' menu.
• A default pair of metadata status change actions defined in Java - see the class org.fao.geonet.services.metadata.DefaultStatusActions.java
  • The first change action is called when a status change is required. The default action taken depends on the status change taking place:
    • When an 'Editor' changes the state on a metadata record(s) from 'Draft' or 'Unknown' to 'Submitted', the Content Reviewers from the groupOwner of the record are informed of the status change via email
    • When a 'Content Reviewer' changes the state on a metadata record(s) from 'Submitted' to 'Accepted' or 'Rejected', the owner of the metadata record is informed of the status change via email AND the group 'All' is assigned all privileges except 'Editing' (ie. the record is publicly accessible)
  • The second status change action is when a record is edited and saved by a user. The default action taken applies to any metadata record with status 'Approved' and resets the status to 'Draft' then removes the privileges for the GeoNetwork group 'All'.
  • These actions can be replaced with different behaviours by:
    • writing Java code in the form of a new class that implements the interface defined in org.fao.geonet.services.metadata.StatusActions.java and placing a compiled version of the class in the GeoNetwork class path
    • defining the name of the new class in the statusActionsClass configuration parameter in WEB-INF/config.xml

Backwards Compatibility Issues

None - metadata records receive status 'Unknown' by default if they don't have an existing status.

New libraries added

None.

Risks

Everything is risky..

Participants

• Simon Pigot, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
• LISASoft (James Sewell) for review