ONIX Essentials Plus Training Course

Overview

This intensive three-session virtual course introduces the ONIX standard and the essentials of producing, managing, and disseminating book metadata. It mixes the background and theory of metadata with real-world practice and guidance in an approachable but authoritative way.

Benefits of Attending

Attendees will learn to understand the basics of ONIX and how it is used in the book industry, to inspect and interpret details of an ONIX message file, and how it could be improved.

Course Level

Beginner. This course is suitable for beginners with no knowledge of ONIX, although it is also of value to those who are already familiar with ONIX. It is aimed at staff with management responsibility for product metadata—either in editorial, IT, marketing or production within a publisher—or in similar roles within distribution and retailing. It is not highly technical, but software developers seeking to understand ONIX would benefit greatly from this course.

Course Outline

The course content aims to cover ONIX 3.0/3.1 in a comprehensive way.

Introduction:

Explanation of what ONIX is, with typical use cases; a brief history of ONIX and its governance; discussion of the different versions of ONIX (2.1 vs 3.0/3.1) including the advantages of 3.0 and 3.1; its commercial benefits; available documentation and tools; development and timetable for new versions. Some of this introduction is pre-recorded, for viewing before the main training.

More Detail:

Introduction to XML syntax and schemas; importance of semantics and controlled vocabularies (code lists); high-level structure and design of ONIX; principles of functional granularity, language independence, semantic interoperability; how code lists and data elements are linked; organization of data feeds, best practice and service level expectations.

Key data elements

Record reference; Product identifiers and Product form; Contributors; XHTML encoding of rich text; Titles, sets, series and Collections; Language and Edition; Subject coding and keywords; Target audience description; Descriptive text and other collateral material; Imprint and Publisher; Publication date and Sales embargoes; Territorial sales rights; Related works and products; Publishing status and Availability; Simple markets, complex markets, supply details and pricing; Free of charge products; Digital products; Usage restrictions and licensing; Open access; Non-territorial sales restrictions; Accessibility; Audiobooks; Chapter-level metadata.

Course Instructor

Graham Bell, Executive Director, EDItEUR

Graham is Executive Director of EDItEUR and is responsible for the overall development of EDItEUR’s standards and the management services it provides on behalf of other standards organizations (ISNI International Agency and the DOI Foundation). He joined EDItEUR as its Chief Data Architect in 2010, focusing on the continuing development and application of ONIX for Books, Thema, EDItX, and on other EDItEUR standards for the global books and serials sectors.

Graham is an experienced trainer and speaker. He previously worked for HarperCollins Publishers in the UK, where most recently he was Head of Publishing Systems.