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ARC RO-Crate Profile

Profiles for representing ARCs (Annotated Research Contexts) as RO-Crate.

ARC Administrative RO-Crate profile

Version: 0.1
Authors: ARC RO-Crate community
License: MIT License
Example conforming crate: ro-crate-metadata.json
Profile Crate: ro-crate-metadata.jsonld
Extends:
- RO-Crate 1.2 specification
JSON-LD context: https://www.researchobject.org/ro-terms/arc/context.jsonld
Vocabulary terms: https://w3id.org/ro/terms/arc#
Table of contents

Overview

The aim of the profile is to be able to provide administrative provenance information about a dataset in a structured way. The profile is based on the Schema.org vocabulary and provides a set of properties that can be used to describe the dataset, its creators, and related publications.

The following graph summarizes the Administrative model in terms of Schema.org vocabulary:

flowchart TD

dataset[Dataset]

ont[DefinedTerm]
prop[PropertyValue]
person[Person]
affiliation[Organization]
article[ScholarlyArticle]

dataset --additionalProperty--> prop
dataset --creator--> person
dataset --citation--> article
dataset --license--> License
person --affiliation--> affiliation
person --jobTitle--> ont

article --identifier--> prop

Example ro-crate-metadata.json

ro-crate-metadata.json

{
  "@context": [
    "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.2/context",
    {
      "Sample": "https://bioschemas.org/Sample",
      "LabProtocol": "https://bioschemas.org/LabProtocol",
      "LabProcess": "https://bioschemas.org/LabProcess",
      "computationalTool": "https://bioschemas.org/properties/computationalTool",
      "labEquipment": "https://bioschemas.org/properties/labEquipment",
      "reagent": "https://bioschemas.org/properties/reagent",
      "intendedUse": "https://bioschemas.org/properties/intendedUse",
      "executesLabProtocol": "https://bioschemas.org/properties/executesLabProtocol",
      "parameterValue": "https://bioschemas.org/properties/parameterValue",
      "columnIndex": "https://w3id.org/ro/terms/arc#columnIndex"
    }
  ],
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@id": "https://ror.org/01qrts582",
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau",
      "url": "https://www.rptu.de/en/"
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/T4FS_0000132",
      "@type": "DefinedTerm",
      "name": "data curation",
      "termCode": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/T4FS_0000132"
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1945-6342",
      "@type": "Person",
      "givenName": "Heinrich Lukas",
      "affiliation": {
        "@id": "https://ror.org/01qrts582"
      },
      "familyName": "Weil",
      "jobTitle": {
        "@id": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/T4FS_0000132"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/T4FS_0000352",
      "@type": "DefinedTerm",
      "name": "data analysis",
      "termCode": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/T4FS_0000352"
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2198-5262",
      "@type": "Person",
      "givenName": "Kevin",
      "affiliation": {
        "@id": "https://ror.org/01qrts582"
      },
      "familyName": "Schneider",
      "jobTitle": {
        "@id": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/T4FS_0000352"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/supervision",
      "@type": "DefinedTerm",
      "name": "Supervision",
      "termCode": "https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/supervision"
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3925-6778",
      "@type": "Person",
      "givenName": "Timo",
      "affiliation": {
        "@id": "https://ror.org/01qrts582"
      },
      "email": "timo.muehlhaus[at]rptu.de",
      "familyName": "Mühlhaus",
      "jobTitle": {
        "@id": "https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/supervision"
      },
      "address": "Erwin-Schrödinger-Str. 56, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany"
    },
    {
      "@id": "https://www.doi.org/10.1000/182",
      "@type": "PropertyValue",
      "name": "DOI",
      "value": "https://www.doi.org/10.1000/182",
      "propertyID": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/OBI_0002110"
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://www.ebi.ac.uk/efo/EFO_0001796",
      "@type": "DefinedTerm",
      "name": "published",
      "termCode": "http://www.ebi.ac.uk/efo/EFO_0001796"
    },
    {
      "@id": "https://www.doi.org/the-identifier/resources/handbook/",
      "@type": "ScholarlyArticle",
      "headline": "An example publication",
      "identifier": {
        "@id": "https://www.doi.org/10.1000/182"
      },
      "url": "https://www.doi.org/the-identifier/resources/handbook/",
      "creativeWorkStatus": {
        "@id": "http://www.ebi.ac.uk/efo/EFO_0001796"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "LICENSE",
      "@type": "CreativeWork",
      "text": "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHORS"
    },
    {
      "@id": "./",
      "@type": "Dataset",
      "description": "An example of a ROCrate with administrative information including creators and citations.",
      "name": "ARC Administrative Crate Example",
      "creator": [
        {
          "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1945-6342"
        },
        {
          "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2198-5262"
        },
        {
          "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3925-6778"
        }
      ],
      "citation": {
        "@id": "https://www.doi.org/the-identifier/resources/handbook/"
      },
      "dateCreated": "2026-06-26T12:35:46.9265674",
      "license": {
        "@id": "LICENSE"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "ro-crate-metadata.json",
      "@type": "CreativeWork",
      "conformsTo": {
        "@id": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.2"
      },
      "about": {
        "@id": "./"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Requirements

Dataset

Property	Required	Expected Type	Description
@id	MUST	Text or URL	Should be “./”, the dataset object represents the root data entity.
@type	MUST	Text	MUST be ‘schema.org/Dataset’
additionalType	COULD	Text or URL	Decorator to identify it as a specialized dataset Investigation
identifier	MUST	Text or URL	Identifying descriptor of the dataset (e.g. repository name).
name	MUST	Text	A title of the dataset (e.g. a paper title).
description	MUST	Text	A description of the dataset (e.g. an abstract).
license	MUST	Text or URL	The license under which the RO-Crate may be used. When no license information is available on crate creation, use the default string `'ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHORS'`
creator	SHOULD	schema.org/Person	The creator(s)/authors(s)/owner(s)/PI(s) of the dataset.
hasPart	COULD	schema.org/Dataset	See RO-Crate specification.
citation	COULD	schema.org/ScholarlyArticle	Publications corresponding with this dataset.
additionalProperty	COULD	schema.org/PropertyValue	Additional properties of the dataset.
datePublished	COULD	DateTime	When the dataset was published. If the dataset is not (yet) published, use the date of the crate creation as default value.
dateCreated	COULD	DateTime	When the dataset was created
dateModified	COULD	DateTime	When the dataset was last modified

Person

Person associated with the dataset.

Property	Required	Expected Type	Description
@id	MUST	Text or URL
@type	MUST	Text	MUST be ‘schema.org/Person’
givenName	MUST	Text	Given name of a person. Can be used for any type of name.
affiliation	SHOULD	schema.org/Organization
email	SHOULD	Text
familyName	SHOULD	Text	Family name of a person.
identifier	SHOULD	Text or URL or schema.org/PropertyValue	One or many identifiers for this person, e.g. an ORCID. Can be of type PropertyValue to indicate the kind of reference.
jobTitle	SHOULD	schema.org/DefinedTerm
additionalName	COULD	Text
address	COULD	schema.org/PostalAddress or Text
telephone	COULD	Text

Note: As schema.org vocabluary does not yet allow software agents as creators or contributors, we suggest to use the double type [schema.org/Person, schema.org/SoftwareApplication] for software agents. This allows for straight-forward compatibility with the schema.org vocabulary and this profile while also allowing to annotate additional metadata about the software agent, e.g. its version, programming language, etc.

ScholarlyArticle

Textual publication associated with the dataset.

Property	Required	Expected Type	Description
@id	MUST	Text or URL
@type	MUST	Text	MUST be ‘schema.org/ScholarlyArticle’
headline	MUST	Text
identifier	MUST	Text or URL or schema.org/PropertyValue	One or many identifiers for this article like a DOI or PubMedID. Can be of type PropertyValue to indicate the kind of reference (See details in Section on PropertyValue).
author	SHOULD	schema.org/Person
creativeWorkStatus	COULD	schema.org/DefinedTerm	The status of the publication in terms of its stage in a lifecycle.

DefinedTerm

Single ontology term.

Property	Required	Expected Type	Description
@id	MUST	Text or URL
@type	MUST	Text	MUST be ‘schema.org/DefinedTerm’
name	MUST	Text	The term name.
termCode	SHOULD	Text	The identifier within the ontology.
inDefinedTermSet	COULD	URL or schema.org/DefinedTermSet	Link to the ontology.

PropertyValue

General profile for key-value pairs. It is based on schema.org/PropertyValue.

Property	Required	Expected Type	Description
@id	MUST	Text or URL
@type	MUST	Text	MUST be ‘schema.org/PropertyValue’
name	MUST	Text	Key name
value	SHOULD	Text	Value text or number
propertyID	SHOULD	URL	Key ontology reference
additionalType	Could	Text	Can be used to further clarify the type of this property
unitCode	COULD	URL	Unit ontology reference
unitText	COULD	Text	Unit name
valueReference	COULD	URL	Value ontology reference

PropertyValue - DOI

If a schema.org/PropertyValue object represents a DOI identifier of an article, it is supposed to have the following exact values:

Property	Required	Required Value	Description
name	MUST	‘DOI’
value	SHOULD	-	The DOI without the ‘https://www.doi.org’ prefix
propertyID	MUST	‘http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/OBI_0002110’	Ontology term describing a DOI

PropertyValue - PubMedID

If a schema.org/PropertyValue object represents a PubMedID identifier of an article, it is supposed to have the following exact values:

Property	Required	Required Value	Description
name	MUST	‘PubMedID’
value	SHOULD	-	The PubMedID
propertyID	MUST	‘http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/OBI_0001617’	Ontology term describing a PubMedID

Person IDs

If possible, the profile recommends to use ORCID identifiers for persons. The ORCID identifier should be used as the @id of the person object.

{
  "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1945-6342",
  "@type": "Person",
  "givenName": "Heinrich Lukas",
  "familyName": "Weil",
}

Organization IDs

If possible, the profile recommends to use ROR identifiers for organizations. The ROR identifier should be used as the @id of the organization object.

{
  "@id": "https://ror.org/01qrts582",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau",
  "url": "https://www.rptu.de/en/"
}