Contact Requirements Summary

The following compiles all of the required and recommended contact information for project and product metadata. This information is also listed in the specific metadata sections in the manual.

Locations for Contact Information

Once your contacts have been created in mdEditor, there are five places in a metadata record where you should add contacts.

Please see the corresponding sections for which contacts should be added where.

  1. Main Tab / Point of Contact
  2. Main Tab / Citation / Responsible Parties
  3. Metadata Tab / Contacts
  4. Funding Tab / Allocation (for Projects only)
  5. Distribution Tab / Contacts (for Products only)

Main / Point of Contact

Role Contact Requirements
pointOfContact SA National Data Steward Required
pointOfContact Your Region Data Steward Best Practice
pointOfContact Data Steward Required
custodian Data Custodian Best Practice
principalInvestigator Project PI Best Practice
administrator FWS Project Officer Required
administrator FWS Region Required
administrator FWS Program Best Practice

Main / Citation / Responsible Parties

This must include a point of contact, but may also include other responsible parties such as funders, partners, collaborators, and contributors. Collaborators could be intellectual participants while contributors could be intellectual and financial participants.

Role Contact Requirements
principalInvestigator Project PI Required

Metadata / Contacts

Role Contact Requirements
author See notes below Required (at least one)
publisher Default is FWS Required
pointOfContact FWS Data Steward Required

Role of author

  • At least one contact with the role of author is required.
  • The author does not necessarily have to be the data steward (e.g., imported FGDC metadata can list the original author).
  • The author can be an individual or an organization.
  • You can enter your regional or program data manager as the author. If you prefer, you can use a generic data manager contact rather than an individual name.

Funding / Allocation (for Projects only)

Source (Required)

Add the relevant contact for the source of the project funding. Source should be an organization, not an individual. For FWS projects, the default source is U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Regions or programs should be added as the funding administrator in the Other Contacts field.

Note

Funding source should always identify the agency or organization, rather than a sub-program or office. For example, all funding from other FWS programs need to list U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the source (and not list the source as Fisheries, specific Refuges, ES, etc.). Clarifications on the exact program or office where the funding came from can be done through the Funding/Other Contacts field (and choose the role of administrator).

Recipient (Required)

Add the relevant contact for the recipient of the project funding. Recipient should always be an organization, not an individual. For example, the Principal Investigator would not be listed as the recipient, but their organization would be listed. If there are multiple recipients for a project, they should be added as separate allocations.

The Principal Investigator may be added in the Other Contacts field as principalInvestigator.

Note

Funding administrator can also be used to differentiate funding from different programs/offices within the same agency. For example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can be identified as the funding source and the funding administrator could include “Ecological Services” or a specific field office.

Distribution (for Products only)

Add the relevant contact for distributor of the product.