OCA_training_pathway

Saving, Depositing and/or Publishing your Schema

You will want to ensure your schema is available for reference and/or reuse. Here are several options:

• You can save your schema together with your data
• You can deposit your schema together with a dataset when you put your dataset in a repository
• You can publish your schema separately, where it is given an identifier you can use to associate the schema with your datasets.

Save your schema with your data

The first, and easiest way to save your schema for future reference is together with the dataset that it is associated with it. This is most useful for schemas that are very specific to your dataset and where you haven’t created the schema with an eye towards reuse.

We suggest that you save your schema both as the readme plain text file and the OCA schema bundle in JSON format. The OCA schema bundle is a machine-readable version and is a published standard. The readme text file is a human-readable version and also useful to save with your data. This should be the most future-proof version of your schema.

Deposit your schema separately in a repository

Schemas can be written to be useful for multiple datasets. A well written schema can be very useful for a research community because it can make it easier to share and understand data, and save the work of documentation.

You can deposit a schema separately in the University of Guelph’s Borealis repository and this will give your schema a citable DOI. You can share and publish this DOI and reference it when you publish your data. Other researchers can reference your schema for their own data collection and publication.

Obtaining a DOI via Borealis:

1. Log in to Borealis, A Canadian Dataverse Repository using your U of G username and password.
2. Request permission to deposit in the U of G Research Data Repositories at lib.research@uoguelph.ca.
3. Once access has been granted, navigate to the Agri-environmental Research Data Repository - Agri-food Data Canada – Schemas collection.
4. Click on ‘Add Data’ button and select ‘New Dataset’ from the drop-down menu.
5. In the Dataset Template section, make sure that ‘ADC Schema’ is selected from the drop-down menu.
6. In the Citation Metadata section, complete the required information (e.g., title, author, contact, description, keywords, depositor name).
7. Under the Files section, drag and drop your OCA Schema Bundle in (*.json) format and the schema readme file in plain text (*.txt) format. 
8. Click Save Dataset.
   • After saving the dataset, a DOI is created and reserved for the record.
9. Edit the draft record (e.g., descriptive information (metadata) or files) as required.
10. Click on the ‘Publish Dataset’ button and select ‘Submit for Review’.
11. Repository staff (at the Library) will review and publish the record.
    • Upon publication, the DOI is resolved and becomes a working link.

For reference: Research & Scholarship, 2020, “How to deposit research data in the Agri-environmental Research Data Repository or the University of Guelph Research Data Repository”, https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/CPHFGA, Borealis

Versioning

For minor updates (like correcting typos) we recommend that you use the replacement feature of the Repository.

• Use the Replace function. This replaces the file in the record and versions the record.
• Previous versions of the file are still accessible using the Versions tab in the record.

For major updates we recommend that you create another DOI and deposit the updated schema there. Add the citation (including DOI) to the original version of the schema into the ‘Related Datasets’ field in the record metadata.

OCA Repository

Agri-food Data Canada, together with the Human Colossus Foundation is currently developing a specialized repository for OCA Schema creation.

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