Introducing Metadata Editor Beta

Metadata – the documentation that describes your data – is all around us. Good metadata support effective content sharing and is essential to quality data that are findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable (FAIR), and decision-ready.

But creating metadata isn’t always easy. Standards are complicated, and metadata editors, with different user interfaces, can be challenging to use. It’s time for a change.

With the ArcGIS Online summer 2023 release, we introduce the metadata editor beta, a streamlined experience for creating high-quality geospatial metadata. The new editor enables you to:

  • Quickly complete what’s needed, creating essential metadata compliant with international open standards.
  • Complete more robust documentation, including optional metadata elements.
  • Search and find metadata elements.
  • View, download, and overwrite metadata records.

Enable the Metadata Editor beta

For organizations that have enabled metadata, the Metadata and Metadata Editor beta button is available to item owners and administrators to create and edit metadata.

Metadata settings
Administrators enable Metadata in the organization settings.

Note the ISO 19115-3 XML Schema Implementation metadata style is also part of the summer release for use with the Metadata Editor beta.

Explore the Metadata Editor beta

In the ArcGIS Online organization, go to the Contents tab and open an existing item. In the Item Details page, click the drop-down on the Metadata button to open the Metadata Editor Beta.

Metadata Editor Beta button

Documenting essential metadata

The Essential metadata tab streamlines metadata creation by presenting only the required and suggested elements for the active metadata style.

To create a minimally compliant metadata record, tab through each element, completing the required and suggested information. Validation messages show a green checkmark for completed information and focus so you can quickly achieve what’s needed.

Essential metadata

Documenting all metadata

The All metadata tab provides a complete experience, including all required, suggested, and optional metadata elements for the active metadata style.

Choose a section in the left navigation and tab through the metadata elements in that section, completing the required, suggested, and optional information as desired. Validation messages show a green checkmark for completed required and suggested elements. Navigate through each section. Click through the remaining validation messages to achieve the desired result.

All metadata navigation

Use the new Search feature to find matching metadata elements. Some metadata elements are in optional sections that can be turned on as needed. Search results do not show these optional sections by default. During a search, you have the option to show hidden results.

Search
Search metadata

Road Ahead

We believe metadata management can be a delightful experience that powers rich data catalogues and drives relevant search results. The metadata editor beta starts this journey. The long-term roadmap is to reduce the complexity, enhance, and unify the metadata editing experience across ArcGIS.

Ready to give it a try?

Explore the Metadata Editor beta in ArcGIS Online. Then share your feedback on the Metadata, Catalogs and Search Esri Community.