Descriptive standards

Main Page > User manual > Overview > Supported descriptive standards

ICA-AtoM is built around the ICA's descriptive standards

While ICA-AtoM is designed around the ICA's international descriptive standards (ISAD(G), ISAAR(CPF), ISDIAH), it is intended to be flexible enough to accommodate other practices based on other (national or local) descriptive standards.

Support

"Support" means that users of another standard should be able to use ICA-AtoM to produce outputs that are compliant with that standard. This includes the ability to:

• Enter data in fields that represent all of the data elements required by the standard
• Interact with (view, edit, search) data in ways structured by and labeled according to the terms of the standard
• Output (print, export) data in formats compliant with the standard

Design principles

To implement support for other standards:

• Map the data elements of the target standard to the related ICA standard and - via this "metadata crosswalk" - to the underlying database architecture in ICA-AtoM/Qubit
• Use existing ICA-AtoM fields wherever the crosswalk establishes a direct correlation between elements in the ICA and target standards
• Create "custom fields" for all other elements in the target standard using ICA-AtoM's "property" database table (where "type" is the name of the element and "value" is the data itself)
• Create additional PHP methods for managing the data as required
• Add user interface templates (view and edit pages) using page divisions and field labels based on the structure and terminology of the target standard

Adding support for another standard requires a developer to work on the underlying software code. Once support has been added, however, ICA-AtoM provides an interface allowing administrators to easily select their preferred standard and to switch between the various standards.

Other (non-ICA) standards currently supported

Users of other descriptive standards should be aware that this manual is generally based on the ICA standards for its examples and screenshots. Standard-specific sections are noted below.

Rules for Archival Description (RAD)

Canadian Rules for Archival Description

• Maintained by the Canadian Council of Archives
• ICA-AtoM support based on July 2008 edition
• RAD-specific sections of this manual are available at Rules for Archival Description

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1

• Unqualified Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1
• Dublin Core-specific sections of this manual are available at Dublin Core

Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS)

• See Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS)
• Note that currently ICA-AtoM supports the Digital Library Federation second level of adoption for MODS (see DLF Aquifer MODS Guidelines Levels of Adoption)
• MODS-specific sections of this manual are available at MODS