Publish / describe · All operations

Publish metadata to a data catalog

A variant of Describe a dataset

Send harvested metadata about datasets and their fields to a data catalog service.

Status

In arcform

Not built yet

arcform does not do this yet. Its place on the roadmap

What other tools call it

Meridian's classification; an independent blind rating agreed on 95.7% of 324 rows (variant, version 3).

Alteryx Designer (3)
  • Connect JSON Builderread 2026-09-27

    Build the JSON metadata document for the Alteryx Connect API in a metadata loader

  • Connect Outputread 2026-09-27

    Send harvested metadata to the Alteryx Connect API in a metadata loader

  • ODBC Loaderread 2026-09-27

    Internal tool used by Connect metadata loaders over ODBC sources

EasyMorph (1)
  • Catalog commandread 2026-09-27

    List, create, move, rename or delete Data Catalog assets, collections, fields and metrics

Pentaho Data Integration (1)
  • Write metadataread 2026-09-27

    Write metadata about resources to Pentaho Data Catalog

Background

The Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) lets a publisher describe datasets in a catalogue with a standard model that eases aggregating metadata across catalogues.[1] In DCAT, a catalogue is a kind of dataset whose member items are descriptions of datasets and data services.[1] Describing datasets in a DCAT catalogue can increase their discoverability and makes federated search across catalogues possible.[1]

When to use it

Sharing data resources among organisations, researchers, governments and citizens requires the provision of metadata, whether or not the data is open.[1] Publish to a catalogue when people need to find the data before they know where it lives; a file beside the data serves those who already have it. (Meridian's view)

DCAT has a catalog record class for cases where a dataset and its entry in a catalogue must be told apart, because metadata such as the modification date might differ.[1] When a catalogue shows a date, check whether it belongs to the dataset or to the catalogue's entry for it. (Meridian's view)

In EasyMorph, the Catalog command action can add or update the field items of a Data Catalog asset, taking their names and descriptions from columns of an input dataset.[2] EasyMorph's Catalog command has an option to delete any of an asset's field items that are not on the input list.[2] Leave a delete-what-is-missing option off until the input list is known to be complete. (Meridian's view)

The method

DCAT is a Resource Description Framework (RDF) vocabulary maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).[3][1] DCAT was originally developed for government data catalogues such as data.gov and data.gov.uk, but it is also applicable to other contexts.[1] DCAT Version 3 was published as a W3C Recommendation on 22 August 2024.[1]

In DCAT, a dataset is a collection of data, published or curated by a single agent, and available for access or download in one or more serializations or formats.[1] A DCAT dataset can be represented by one or more distributions that serialise it for transfer.[1] DCAT does not prescribe any particular method of deploying data catalogues, and its information can be presented in many forms.[1]

In Pentaho Data Integration, the Write metadata step writes metadata to the Pentaho Data Catalog (PDC).[4] In Pentaho Data Integration, the Catalog Output step creates a Pentaho Data Catalog resource or updates an existing one, and saves the metadata associated with it.[4] In EasyMorph, the Catalog command can also update the short and long descriptions of a Data Catalog asset.[2]

Sources

  1. [1]Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) - Version 3standard
  2. [2]CATALOG COMMAND [EasyMorph Help]documentation
  3. [3]Data Catalog Vocabulary - Wikipediasecondary source
  4. [4]PDI transformation steps | 9.3 Data Integration | Pentahodocumentation