Metadata is information that describes a podcast's content and author.
The original iTunes application was created to play music and videos; the terminology is used differently when applied to the academic world. Below you will find an explanation of the way the university uses iTunes' naming conventions. It is important to follow these guidelines in order to maintain consistency and to add value to your digital materials.
The Upload and Manage Files link on the Album page will allow updating of the Name and Artist metadata fields. Other metadata information should be added during file creation. Software used to develop media usually offers fields to enter metadata. Users can adjust the settings inside the iTunes application to display metadata.
A track is a single file that contains one session's worth of information. The Name of a track should uniquely identify that track, and provide some insight as to the content.
<a descriptive topical name>, <part # if multiple parts>, <date: mm/dd/yyyy>
Examples
The Artist is the person who is primarily responsible for the information in the file. For an academic course, the instructor should be listed as the Artist. For other content, the department or the primary content contributor should be listed.
<originator of content, title if applicable>
Examples
The Album Artist field should be used to note any guest speakers or one-time contributors to the content.
<guest lecturer, guest speaker>
Example
An Album represents a collection of tracks with a unifying theme. An Album should be named in a way that uniquely identifies its content. For academic courses, the Album is created and named by the system. The Album name is applied to the Album metadata field when a track is downloaded, but the Album field should still be filled out to make online content searchable and appear professional.
Users can subscribe to podcasts on the Album or Tab level, so if you have several albums or tabs with only a few files each, consolidate them.
Grouping contains extra data that can be used to organize content by theme. Groupings can be used to collect files from many albums in different areas, building a multi-disciplinary collection of content organized around the same theme.
Example
All tracks should list "University at Buffalo" as the Genre. This will help UB content remain UB-branded and findable. The system should automatically add this data when the file is uploaded.
Allows the user to add more information regarding the content of the file.
Examples
The year the file was recorded.
Use this field for transcriptions or long descriptions of the content.
