Aristotle Metadata Data Asset template

About this template:

This is an template designed by Aristotle Metadata to help organisations develop data inventories and document data assets by providing a simple template to collect the core metadata fields defined in the ISO 11179 Standard for metadata registries.
Learn more about this template at: https://www.aristotlemetadata.com/

Guide for use:

Enter as much information about each asset as you have available. If your data is generated from multiple sources, you can select the “plus icon” shown below to add new rows to the table to describe each data asset individually.

None of the fields within this document are mandatory when saving, however, the more information you can provide about your data asset the better your data will be understood.

Name and Definition

These fields help identify and describe a data asset to help others find data within the registry and interpret it correctly.

Aristotle UUID Identifier The unique identifier of the asset.	Enter a UUID, or leave blank to create a new item
Name The primary name used for identification purposes.	Click or tap here to enter text.
Description A descriptive statement of the data asset to differentiate it from other related data.	Click or tap here to enter text.

References & Comments

These fields are common to all metadata within the ISO 11179 standard and assist with understanding the context and source of our asset.

References Significant documents that contributed to the development of the metadata item which were not the direct source for the metadata content.	Click or tap here to enter text.
Comments Descriptive comments about the metadata item	Click or tap here to enter text.
Origin The source (e.g. document, project, discipline or model) for the item	Click or tap here to enter text.

Data Set Components

These fields are common to datasets to provide information about how data is generated, the responsible parties and how data can be used and accessed.

Licence Information about the license document under which the dataset is made available	Click or tap here to enter text.
Rights Information about rights held in and over the dataset.	Click or tap here to enter text.
Release Date Date of formal publication of the dataset.	Click or tap to enter a date.
Modification Date Most recent date on which the dataset was changed, updated, or modified.	Click or tap to enter a date.
Frequency The frequency at which dataset is published.	Click or tap here to enter text.
Spatial Coverage Spatial or geographic coverage of the dataset.	Click or tap here to enter text.
Temporal Coverage The temporal or time period that the dataset covers.	Click or tap here to enter text.
Landing Page A Web page that can be navigated to in a Web browser to gain access to the dataset, its distributions and/or additional information	Click or tap here to enter text.
Contact Point Relevant contact information for the Dataset.	Click or tap here to enter text.

Data lineage information

Use the table below to provide a brief overview of data used in the creation of your data asset.

Name of data asset	Brief description of data asset	Contact Point	How this asset was used in the creation of this data
Click or tap here to enter text.	Click or tap here to enter text.	Click or tap here to enter text.	Click or tap here to enter text.

Help and information

How to use this template

This template uses Microsoft Word's Content Controls to provide a template for documenting data assets. Because this template doesn’t require any “macros”, it is ideal for use in corporate and government environments for sharing information. Because standard word documents can be easier for people to write but challenging for machines to read, using Content Controls makes it easier to extract information to transfer content into data catalogues as the organisation matures.

This template has locked text and fields text that restrict the content that can be entered – such as only allowing free text names, or only allowing selections from dropdowns for lists such as Security Classifications. This helps build a standard approach to documenting your data and ensures data assets can be easily compared.

Documenting additional fields

Many organisations completing a data inventory attempt to add extra fields to capture additional business knowledge about data. We recommend starting with the ISO11179 Metadata Registry Attributes before adding additional fields.

However, if you are a data manager conducting an inventory and want to alter this template to document additional fields you can do this by enabling the “Developer” tab and entering “Design Mode”. This will allow you to You can learn more about Microsoft Word Developer tools from the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Using Content Controls makes it easier to automatically and accurately extract content from Word documents and be uploaded to tools like the Aristotle Metadata Registry. To ensure any extra information you collect can be extracted, we recommend only adding extra fields to your template using Content Controls to ensure our software can extract these additional fields.

Documenting data lineage

All data comes from somewhere – whether it’s a system, a form, a report, or a new data product you’ve developed based on data you gathered from your organisation. That’s why we’ve added an extra section to the Aristotle template to help you document the last critical key to your data – what data did you use to create your new data asset?

This makes your data make sense in 3 ways:

Makes it easier for others to understand how your data was created,

Reduces the risk that others will change the data you use without notifying you; and

Helps data managers find and document data that exists within your organisation.

Licensing

This template is provided under copyright and licensed by Aristotle Metadata under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) 4.0 License.

This means you are free to use, share and remix this template as much you like for as long as you like, provided you give attribution to Aristotle Metadata and share your template under the same terms.