'Colorized' Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata, FGDC-STD-001-1998

These work best (for me anyway) when printed out with a color inkjet printer. Set your browser to Font size to 10 point (or smaller) before printing to conserve paper. Please read these notes related to colons, brackets, and comments for the most effective use of the 'Colorized' CSDGM.

Basic Color Scheme

Element coding : Mandatory, Mandatory if Applicable, Optional, Choice.

• For printing on an inkjet printer, has hierarchical level indication (most preferred)
• For printing on an inkjet printer
• For browser viewing, has hierarchical level indication , internal hyperlinks between major section, and comments for extended compound elements (preferred)
• For browser viewing, internal hyperlinks between major section, and comments for extended compound elements

Image Map Color Scheme

Element coding : Mandatory, Mandatory if Applicable, Optional, Choice . (The color fuchsia is not actually used in the 'Image Map of the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata'; choice elements are indicated by the word 'OR' on those metadata graphics created by Susan Stitt.)

• For printing on an inkjet printer, has hierarchical level indication , olive has been substituted for yellow because the latter is almost invisible on white paper (most preferred)
• For printing on an inkjet printer, olive has been substituted for yellow because the latter is almost invisible on white paper
• For browser viewing, has hierarchical level indication , internal hyperlinks between major section, and comments for extended compound elements (preferred)
• For browser viewing, internal hyperlinks between major section, and comments for extended compound elements

Notes for the Colorized Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata

Following a common convention, elements which require data entry are followed by a colon.

It follows from the rule above, that compound elements (elements that don't take a value themselves, but are the parent element for hierarchically lower, or 'child' elements) are not followed by colons.

There are several compound elements in the Colorized Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata which require children if used, but that are not expanded to include them. These include the second recursion of the elements 'Citation_Information' and 'Attribute' and the element Map_Projection_Parameters that may take several of 22 possible child elements.

When several elements are grouped together by the production rules, the bracket, brace, or parenthesis which indicates the end of the group is placed on a separate line, at the same level of indentation as the bracket, brace, or parenthesis which began the group. Furthermore, when the group ending bracket, brace, or parenthesis is separated from the corresponding group beginning bracket, brace, or parenthesis by more than about a dozen lines, a comment is added to the line with the group ending bracket, brace, or parenthesis which indicates the element which with which the group began, e.g.

]) # closes Point_and_Vector_Object_Information

The of colored square hierarchical level indicators has somewhat reduced the need for the construct just described. There are also comments associated with certain elements, these appear as text following the element name and a '#' symbol. In some cases these comment are the suggested value for the element, e.g. the suggested value for Metadata_Standard_Name.

Only one production rule cannot be effectively conveyed through the use of font (or color) and brackets, braces, and parentheses. This is the single instance of and/or in the production rules. Specifically:

Entity_and_Attribute_Information=[Detailed_Description | Overview_Description | Detailed_Description + Overview_Description]

The elements involved in this case are specifically commented as and/or.