The following metadata elements are the minimum standard for describing a thesis. Administrative and preservation metadata should follow the member's standard practice for long-term storage of digital material.
Included in the table are the equivalent Dublin Core Metadata Element and recommendations on use.
| Element | Dublin Core Element | Recommendations |
|---|---|---|
| Title | title | Full title, including any subtitle exactly as it appears on the thesis title page |
| Author | creator | Family name, first name, second name |
| Keywords | subject scheme="LCSH" |
Repeatable. All the keywords deemed
appropriate by the author should be added All the keywords deemed appropriate by the librarian should be added |
| Abstract | description OR description.abstract |
A summary of the content. |
| Date |
date OR date.valid scheme="W3CDTF” |
Date that the thesis is declared to have completed all the requirements for Award. Use the W3C Encoding rules for dates and times: http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime |
| Language |
language scheme="RFC3066” |
Repeatable Use the language codes defined in RFC3066: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt |
| Institution | publisher | University name, School name. |
| Copyright | rights | Repeatable. This should default to both the standard institution-wide disclaimer plus the author of the thesis. |
| URI | identifier scheme=”URI” |
The unique identifier for the thesis.
The URI is used to point to the public view of the
thesis. The URI should be the persistent identifier
assigned by the member’s repository. Use
the Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt For
members using the ADT-customised VT-ETD software it
is generated in the following format adt-NUC-YYYYmmddhhmmss, where year, date and time the thesis was deposited. |
| Format | format | The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource. May need to be considered if non-textual material is included such as video, transparencies or sound files. An example is a Doctorate of Creative Arts (DCA) |
| Thesis Degree Type | type OR type.thesis.degree |
Not used |
| Contributor | contributor | Not applicable An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource. |
| Coverage | coverage | Not in the minimum standard The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant. |
| Source | source | Not applicable The resource from which the described resource is derived. |