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Poster Schema

The Posters.science JSON Schema was developed with the University of California Curation Center (UC3). The schema balances adherence to DataCite standards with unique poster metadata needs.

Current version: v0.2 (DataCite 4.7) | Previous: v0.1 (DataCite 4.6)

Schema Repository

The complete schema specification is available on GitHub: https://github.com/fairdataihub/poster-json-schema

Design Principles

The schema follows these core principles:

  • FAIR Support: Every required field supports FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability)
  • Extensibility: Support for additional properties through additionalProperties
  • Poster-Specific Fields: Custom fields for gaps in general schemas
  • Human and Machine Readable: JSON format optimized for both readability and AI/ML processing
  • Interoperability: Mapping to repository schemas (Zenodo, Figshare)

Why DataCite?

DataCite was selected as the base schema because:

  • Industry Standard: Standard for research output metadata with 10M+ DOIs
  • Comprehensive Coverage: Complete bibliographic coverage with strong identifier support (ORCID, ROR, DOI)
  • Native Funding Support: Built-in funding reference support
  • Wide Adoption: Established standard in research data management

Poster-Specific Extensions

The schema extends DataCite with fields unique to scientific posters:

Conference Object

Captures comprehensive conference information:

  • Name: Conference name (mandatory)
  • Location: Conference venue and city
  • Dates: Start and end dates (mandatory)
  • Acronym: Conference abbreviation
  • Identifiers: Conference IDs and series information

Ethics Approvals

Array structure for ethical compliance documentation:

  • IRB (Institutional Review Board) protocols
  • Ethics committee certifications
  • Study approval numbers

Domain Field

Primary research area categorization:

  • Research domain classification
  • Subject area tagging
  • Discipline identification

Content

The content object stores extracted text with a flexible structure:

  • sections: Array of content sections, where each section contains:
    • sectionTitle: The heading of the section (e.g., "Introduction", "Methods", "Results", "Discussion", "Conclusions")
    • sectionContent: The text content of that section
  • unstructuredContent: Optional fallback for content that cannot be organized into clear sections

This flexible structure accommodates unstructured poster layouts without forcing content into rigid predefined sections.

Image and Table Captions

Separate arrays for visual element descriptions:

  • imageCaptions: Array of objects with caption text and optional ID for cross-referencing
  • tableCaptions: Array of objects with caption text and optional ID for cross-referencing

Identifiers

Primary Identifier: psID

The identifiers array includes psID (Posters.science system identifier) as a mandatory identifier, serving as the primary database key. This ensures every poster has a unique, permanent identifier within the platform.

DOI Assignment

DOIs are added to the identifiers array when posters are deposited to repositories (Zenodo or Figshare).

Resource Type

As of schema v0.2 (DataCite 4.7), resource types default to "Poster" — a new controlled vocabulary value added in DataCite 4.7 alongside "Presentation". In v0.1, the default was "Other" since DataCite 4.6 did not include "Poster" as a specific option.

Repository Mapping

The internal Poster.json Field Coverage Google Sheet (in the project Google Drive) is the canonical reference for:

  • Which poster schema fields are extracted, auto-assigned, or not populated
  • Whether each field is user-reviewed in the UI
  • How each field maps to Zenodo deposit metadata

For the public-facing version of this information, see docs.posters.science:

Supplementary File Strategy

For fields without direct equivalents in repository schemas:

  • posterContent
  • Ethics approvals
  • Domain classification

The complete poster.json file is included as a supplementary file in the repository deposit, ensuring no metadata is lost.

What's New in v0.2 (DataCite 4.7)

  • "Poster" and "Presentation" added to resourceTypeGeneral controlled list — posters no longer need to use "Other"
  • Default resourceTypeGeneral changed from "Other" to "Poster"
  • "RAiD" and "SWHID" added to relatedIdentifierType controlled list
  • "Other" relationType added with new relationTypeInformation sub-property for describing custom relationships
  • relationTypeInformation sub-property added to relatedIdentifiers items

Schema Versioning

The schema follows semantic versioning (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH):

  • MAJOR: Breaking changes to schema structure
  • MINOR: New fields or non-breaking additions
  • PATCH: Bug fixes and clarifications

Each schema version is archived on Zenodo with its own DOI for permanent reference and citation.