RIF-CS explained

The Registry Interchange Format - Collections and Services (RIF-CS) is an XML vocabulary for representing metadata about data collections and related entities based on ISO 2146.^[1]

It is a machine-readable format to describe metadata about data collections. Similar to how MARC standards are used by library systems to describe books, RIF-CS is used to describe data collections.For example, a RIF-CS record can describe a spreadsheet containing experimental results: it might contain the title, description, creator, keywords, date the experiment was conducted and a URL to obtain the actual spreadsheet. Another RIF-CS record can describe the person who created the spreadsheet: it might contain their name, address and contact email.

RIF-CS documents, containing RIF-CS records, are exchanged between computer systems. For example, a university can send the RIF-CS documents to a national database, where it can be indexed and searched. People can download RIF-CS records from a national database to use the information to find out more about the data and/or the researcher.

Model

The metadata describes the entity as well relationships between the entities. RIF-CS represents metadata about the following types of entities, which it calls registry objects:^[2]

• Collections
• Parties
• Activities
• Services

These entities are based on the entities defined in ISO 2146.^[3]

The registry objects contain either embedded information or links to other registry objects. Some information is represented directly in the registry object; for example: names, descriptions and dates. Other information is represented by a link to another registry object: for example, the creator for a collection (research data) is a link to another registry object that describes the party (a researcher).

Use

RIF-CS is used in Australian universities and industry as a format for submitting metadata to the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) Research Data Australia service.^[4]

In that context, collections represent collections of research data; parties represent people and groups; activities represent research projects or programs; services represent ways to access the research data collections.

RIF-CS is only a representation of the metadata. To exchange RIF-CS a protocol, such as OAI-PMH, is used.

Example

This example RIF-CS document contains a collection record and a party record.

urn:uuid:7d9127c5-b97e-4474-87a3-68f2c219c609 https://www.example.com/thales/source urn:uuid:dec9b127-0d24-4d12-aaf2-a71e9ed29f75 Test data Data for testing Data used for testing. test

[e-mail]

https://www.example.edu/data/1234

2012 2013 https://www.example.com/foobar urn:uuid:30fda6cd-5b08-4376-a1b7-2ee40144d9da urn:uuid:30fda6cd-5b08-4376-a1b7-2ee40144d9da https://www.example.com/thales/source https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9501-6966 Dr John Citizen

Notes and References

1. Global Registries, "The Registry Interchange Format - Collections and Services (RIF-CS)", Retrieved on 4 January 2013.
2. Australian National Data Service, "Learn about RIF-CS", Retrieved on 4 January 2013.
3. ISO, "ISO 2146:2010 Information and documentation - Registry services for libraries and related organizations".
4. Australian National Data Service, "Research Data Australia".