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CMDI 1.2

1.2 is the successor of version 1.1 of CLARIN's metadata framework, which was introduced in 2010[1]. More background information and a general overview of the changes in CMDI 1.2 compared to its predecessor can be found in the blog post announcing CMDI 1.2. The concept of Component Metadata and the associated infrastructure managed by CLARIN are described on the general component metadata pages.

Work on CMDI 1.2 is coordinated by the CMDI Taskforce of the CLARIN Centre Committee

The follow pages focus on the changes in CMDI 1.2 compared to its predecessor and aim to provide information to various user groups that may be interested in using, adopting and/or transitioning to CMDI 1.2:

The final version of the technical specification of CMDI 1.2 is now available!


Documents related to CMDI 1.2:


CMDI 1.2 in CLARIN's metadata infrastructure

If you are not familiar with component metadata, please read the information on the general CMDI page first.

CLARIN's metadata infrastructure supports two versions of CMDI: 1.1 and 1.2. Components and profiles in the Component Registry are specified and stored in the CMDI 1.2 version of the Component Specification Language. However, the Component Registry can produce CMDI 1.1 versions of these specifications on the fly by means of the conversion stylesheets that are part of the CMDI toolkit. Profiles of both versions can be transformed into schemata that can be used to create and/or validate records of the corresponding CMDI versions.

The virtual language observatory ( ) presents metadata from many providers that is collected by means of in a process called harvesting. Both CMDI 1.1 and CMDI 1.2 metadata can be harvested by the CLARIN infrastructure. The versions can be distinguished from one another by means of the namespaces used in the records. CMDI 1.1 records are converted, locally, to CMDI 1.2 so that the part of the VLO that processes (maps and indexes) the records only has to deal with CMDI 1.2. This way, all CMDI metadata can be presented in the same way in the VLO.

The CMDI toolkit can be used by anyone to produce, convert or validate component metadata. The CMDI 1.1 toolkit is available in addition to the actively maintained CMDI 1.2 toolkit and can be obtained via GitHub or accessed via infra.clarin.eu/CMDI.


CMDI 1.2 compatibility matrix

Tool CMDI 1.1 CMDI 1.2  
Reads Writes Reads Writes Remarks
Infrastructure components  
  Virtual Language Observatory     CMDI 1.1 through harvester conversion
  Virtual Collection Registry      
Metadata editors  
  Arbil     No longer maintained
  Comedi      
  CMDI Maker        
  Coala        
Linguistic tools  
  WebLicht      

The information in the above table is not guaranteed to be up-to-date. Please send you additions or updates to the above information to cmdi [at] clarin.eu (cmdi[at]clarin[dot]eu)!

Last update: 15 July 2016


[1]Before CMDI 1.1 there was no proper versioning of CMDI so all older versions should be considered ~1.0