Welcome to autotag-metadata’s documentation!

Autotag-metadata allows automatic creation of metadata files upon file creation. The input metadata file can be added in a simple GUI or from template YAML files. The program was originally developed to create metadata files for experimental data acquired in a laboratory. However, it can be used in any process where files are generated in the file system and the attachment of additional metadata is desired.

Input and output metadata files are currently in YAML, which can easily be converted in any other kinds of formats such as JSON, XML, …

The benefit of recording such metadata files is that these machine readable metadata files allow for further usage of the research data in following data management workflows, i.e., to transfer files to a data repository, to update electronic lab notebooks, or perform automated data evaluation based on the available metadata.

Example

Assume a study in which the degradation of a fruit is followed at different temperatures, i.e., the change in color of a banana. For the first temperature the program returns a banana.csv and or the second a banana2.csv. These files contain a limited amount of information, such as a time t and intensity I axis.

All other information on the experimentalist, the banana, and other starting parameters would have to be stored elsewhere (sheet of paper or electronic lab notebook). In combination with autotag-metadata first pre-define some information such as:

experimentalist: Max Mustermann
supervisor: John Doe
project: degradation
equipment:
  - temperature sensor XY
  - color probe 2.0
starting temperature:
  value: 300
  unit: K
humidity:
  value: 80
  unit: '%'
fruit:
  type: banana
  purchased: YYYY.MM.DD
  supplier: Banana corp.

When autotag-metadata is active when banana.csv is generated, a new file banana.csv.meta.yaml is written in the same folder, which contains the pre-defined set of metadata. The next measurement is supposed to be done at 320 K. In that case, while autotag-metadata is still running, we change in the mask of the programm the temperature from 300 to 320 K. Once the next file is created, here banana2.csv the newly created banana2.csv.meta.yaml will contain the updated temperature.

An elaborate metadata file for an electrochemistry experiment can be found echemdbs’ metadata schema repository.

Note

Multiple instances of the program can be launched to watch different folders for file creations.

Refer to the usage section for more details on the GUI.

Installation

See the installation instructions for details.