Based on feedback from the community, the project team has put the openCost schema through its paces in recent months and made several adjustments and improvements.

Attribute-free version

The community repeatedly asked whether the openCost schema could also be displayed in JSON format as an alternative. Previously, the use of XML attributes in the definition of the original openCost proposal stood in the way of this request, as attributes cannot be clearly mapped to JSON structures. The openCost schema has now been remodeled in an attribute-free version. Instead of XML attributes, type/value element combinations are used now. After weighing up all the pros and cons, the project team deliberately opted for this version to enable simple translation into other formats.

Further adjustments to the schema

In addition to switching to an attribute-free schema, the project team has made further adjustments:

  • Empty elements are not allowed: Whenever an element is indicated to be required, it must contain either another element or text. Whether an element is required can be seen from the documentation (“Required” table column).
  • The order of multiple elements is now arbitrary. The “Repeatable” table column in the documentation indicates whether an element can occur more than once.
  • Addition of a ‚group_id‘: By defining a ‚group_id‘, a publication (element: ‚publication‘) can now be linked to a set of invoices from a contract (element: ‚contract‘). The ‚group_id‘ may be selected freely. However, the openCost team recommends the use of a unique identifier. A possible approach is to use a combination of the institution’s ROR ID, the contract primary identifier and a year.
  • The terminology has been standardized.

Expanded documentation

The schema documentation on GitHub has been significantly expanded. There is an overview with general information on the metadata schema (Metadata Schema: Overview). In addition, the two main elements (‚publication‘ and ‚contract) are described both in a tree-like overview and in a more detailed table. The table entries are linked to the tree elements via an identification number. Furthermore, the table column “Description/Remarks” contains comments on the respective fields of the schema for a better understanding.