MR-1.1.1

Assign unique identifiers to a description

Main Page > System requirements > Metadata requirements

Specification

The application must be able to:

• Assign one or more unique identifiers (codes) to descriptions.
• Include in the identifier components that represent the institution that is responsible for the description and its country of origin.

Context (parent requirements)

• MR-1 Record information about archival materials

• MR-1-1 Register units of description

Source quotations

• ISAD(G) 3.1.1

• OSARIS

Associated functional requirements

• FR-2.5.1 Identify units of description

Associated quality requirements

The application should be able to:

• Keep database IDs (automatically generated by the application and hidden from user) separate from reference codes (assigned by the archivist and meaningful to users).

• Support auto-entry of next available reference code upon record creation.

• Automatically concantenate a repository's institution and country identifiers with the description reference code to ensure unique identifiers in a multi-repository system (user should not have to manually enter institution and country codes).

Associated technical requirements

ICA-AtoM fields

• information_object::id

• information_object::identifier

ICA-AtoM implementation

• ICA-AtoM automatically assigns each record a unqiue database ID (id); this value is invisible to users.

• Users enter their own Reference code (identifier). ICA-AtoM allows any type of value in this field (numbers, text, alpha-numeric code) to accommodate any institutional system for assigning identifiers.

Known issues

• ICA-AtoM 1.0 beta cannot currently auto-generate next sequential reference code / number.

Use cases

User Manual sections