Field Name

Best Practice

Title (Required)

Sentence case
Example: A tabulation of semiconductor integrals

Date of Publication (Required)

Full date if possible; if not, year only
Example: 2010-04-29

Type of Resource (Required)

Select all types applicable
Example: Image, Text

Subject Keyword (Required: at least one)

Sentence case
Example: Semiconductor integrals

Spell out acronymsnce case
Example: National Center for Supercomputing Applications

Author or Creator

Last Name, First Name Middle Initial, Suffix or Numeral Suffix
Example: Smith, John L., Jr.

Last Name, First Name Middle Initial, Suffix, Numeral Suffix

Last Name, First Name Middle Name

If you have initials for the first and middle names, check to see whether you can determine the full name. For example, many times a faculty member has another item in IDEALS under their full name, or you can find the full name later in the document. You should crosscheck that you have the right full name by ensuring that they are part of the same department or discipline. Doing this work helps us with authority work on author names down the road. If there are initials for the first and middle names, or initials for multiple middle names, these should not have a space between them.

Example: Shreeves, S.L.

If you are the author or co-author of several items housed in IDEALS, it is important that you maintain a consistent format of your name in this metadata field for the purpose of authority records.  The name format in the dc.creator metadata field does NOT have to match the format that is in the paper or presentation itself.

If an entity, organization, or institution is considered to be the author (or contributor), and there are divisions, committees, or other descriptors or the entity, list in the order of:

Largest - smaller - smallest

Example: University of Illinois. College of Education. Bureau of Research and Service

Example: Illinois. Department of Natural Resources. Illinois State Geological Survey

List all authors in separate fields (or use the semi colon).

Contributor

Last Name, First Name Middle Initial, Suffix. (Role)
Example: Smith, John L., Jr. (Editor)

Last Name, First Name Middle Initial, Suffix or Numeral Suffix
Example: Smith, John L., Jr. (Editor)

Example: Smith, John L., III (Illustrator)

Last Name, First Name Middle Initial, Suffix, Numeral Suffix

Example: Smith, John L., Jr., III (Translator)

Last Name, First Name Middle Name

Example: Smith, John Lee (Editor)

If you are submitting a thesis or dissertation, DO NOT USE THIS FIELD for committee chair or advisor. Use the fields specific for theses and dissertations.

If you have initials for the first and middle names, check to see whether you can determine the full name. For example, many times a faculty member has another item in IDEALS under their full name, or you can find the full name later in the document. You should crosscheck that you have the right full name by ensuring that they are part of the same department or discipline. Doing this work helps us with authority work on author names down the road. If there are initials for the first and middle names, these should not have a space between them.

Example: Smith, J.L.

If you are the contributor of several items housed in IDEALS, it is important that you maintain a consistent format of your name in this metadata field for the purpose of authority records.  The name format in the dc.contributor metadata field does NOT have to match the format that is in the paper or presentation itself.

If an entity, organization, or institution is considered to be the author (or contributor), and there are divisions, committees, or other descriptors or the entity, list in the order of:

Largest - smaller - smallest

Example: University of Illinois. College of Education. Bureau of Research and Service

Example: Illinois. Department of Natural Resources. Illinois State Geological Survey

List all contributors in separate fields (or use the semicolon).

Abstract or Summary

If you paste this in from a PDF that has been generated from a scan, please check for misspellings and strange gaps between words or within words.

Geographic coverage

Only use if the subject of the item is a geographic location. For example, see Aquifer sensitivity of Carroll County, Illinois

Genre of Resource

Check appropriate boxes.

Primary Language of Resource

Choose appropriate language.

Complete Citation for Item

This is best used when you are submitting a journal article or a book chapter, where it would be useful to clearly provide a citation. This field is not necessary for technical reports, theses and dissertations.

Publisher

Smallest entity, larger, largest.
Example: Engineering Experiment Station. College of Engineering. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Be consistent.

Series Name/ Report No.

Series name ; no. [  ]
Example: Engineering Experiment Station. Circular ; no. 084

BE CONSISTENT! This field allows users to browse by report number so that they can find a specific number. It also allows staff to see which report numbers have not been digitized.

Depending on the number of items in the series, you will need to add a leading zero so that the series sort properly. For example, if you have over 100 but less than 1000 items in the series, you would list items #1 and #12 as follows:

Engineering Experiment Station. Circular ; no. 001
Engineering Experiment Station. Circular ; no. 012

Many times series published by UIUC were part of a larger series called the University of Illinois Bulletin. We do try to capture this information where possible. This is a second series name. Follow the convention below:
Example: University of Illinois Bulletin ; vol. 061, no. 086, May 1964

Sponsor/Grant Number

Please use if there is an obvious sponsor or if item was done under contract. Spell out funder and include grant numbers if included.
Example: Institute of Museum and Library Services Grant LG-02-02-0281

Rights Information

Always spell out 'Copyright', and include the year.
Example: Copyright 2014 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

If the item is a dissertation or thesis, the copyright belongs to the student, and should be noted as such. This is also true of technical reports that basically publish a student’s dissertation as a tech report. In these cases (if it is obvious), we should clearly note that copyright rests with the author. Theses may be made openly available.

Identifier

Enter the appropriate identifier. You do not need to enter DOI before entering a number.

Additional metadata for dissertations and theses

Degree

Choose the appropriate degree

Dissertation or Thesis

Choose the appropriate field

Dissertation Chair

Use the same conventions as Author or Creator above. You do not need to include the role in parentheses

Do NOT use for master's theses.

Dissertation Director of Research or Thesis Advisor

Use the same conventions as Author or Creator above. You do not need to include the role in parentheses

Dissertation Committee Member

Use the same conventions as Author or Creator above. You do not need to include the role in parentheses

Do NOT use for master's theses.

Degree Granting Institution

This should always be as follows:

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Dissertation/Thesis Degree discipline

This should match what is on the title page of the thesis or dissertation. Discipline does not always match the department. For example, a dissertation may have the discipline of Civil Engineering when the Department name is Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Dissertation/Thesis Degree department

This should be the department that has granted the degree. It usually matches the discipline, but not always. Please spell out the department name completely. Do not include 'Department of' before the name.
Example: Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dissertation/Thesis degree program

This field should only be used if the dissertation or thesis is part of a specified program. There are only a handful of these; Neuroscience is one.