Metadata Default Locale ★★★★

Metadata may be captured in different languages in different locations. For users, it is important that the language of the metadata be known. MD_Metadata.defaultLocale provide a way to record the primary language of the metadata.


Element Name	defaultLocale
Parent	MD_Metadata
Class/Type	PT_Locale
Governance	Common ICSM
Purpose	Discovery, Data Management
Audience	machine resource - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
	general - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
	resource manager - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
	specialist - ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑
Metadata type	Discovery
ICSM Level of Agreement	⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Definition

Language and character set used for documenting metadata.

ISO Obligation

There can be one and only one [1..1] defaultLocale entries for the cited resource in the MD_Metadata package in the metadata record of class PT_Locale.

Discussion

There may be only one default locale identified in one metadata record. This element only describes the default language of the metadata. Any language elements used in the described spatial resource may have a different default language and would be captured in the element MD_Identification.defaultLocale The element “otherLocale” can be used to provide information about alternatively used localised character strings.

Best Practice Recommendations

Therefore - in order to provide metadata in a consistent manner for the users in our region, it is recommended that English be chosen as the value for language using the ISO 639-2, 3-alphabetic digits code “eng”.

Recommended Sub-Elements

Follow the general guidance for class - PT_Locale

Recommended Sibling Elements -

otherLocale - [class - PT_Locale] [0..*] when a metadata record has information in additional languages

Also Consider

MD_Metadata.otherLocale - (codelist - PT_Locale) [0..*] provides information about alternatively used localised character strings provides information about alternatively used localised character strings
MD_DataIdentification.defaultLocale (codelist - PT_Locale) [0..1] contains the language and character set used within the resource, such as map labels or other text.
MD_DataIdentification.otherLocale - (codelist - PT_Locale) [0..*] alternate localised language(s) and character set (s) used within the resource

Crosswalk considerations

ISO19139

MD_Metadata/language moved to MD_Metadata/defaultLocale:PT_Locale - Make use of the newly added Language and character set localization package for defining local language and character set.

Dublin core / CKAN / data.gov.au

Maps to language CKAN has one field for language that maps to both Metadata and Resource language fields. ISO 19115 recommends 639-2 3 letter codes. Data.gov.au recommends IETF RFC4646 2 letter codes as primary. See https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html#6 for discussion of the differences

DCAT

Maps to dct.language

RIF-CS

No identified mapping

Examples

XML -

<mdb:MD_Metadata>
....
  <mdb:defaultLocale>
   <lan:PT_Locale id="EN">
     <lan:language>
      <lan:LanguageCode 
      codeList="http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/" 
      codeListValue="eng"/>
     </lan:language>
     <lan:characterEncoding>
      <lan:MD_CharacterSetCode 
      codeList="https://schemas.isotc211.org/19115/resources/Codelist/cat
      /codelists.xml#MD_CharacterSetCode" codeListValue="utf8"/>
     </lan:characterEncoding>
   </lan:PT_Locale>
  </mdb:defaultLocale>
....
</mdb:MD_Metadata>

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UML diagrams

Recommended elements highlighted in yellow

MDdefaultLocale

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