CoreMeta4Cat is a community-driven standard — your feedback and knowledge directly shape what gets included. Here are the most common ways to get involved, no coding required.
Every field on the schema documentation pages has a Submit Term Feedback button. Click it to open a pre-filled GitHub issue where you can suggest a change, report an error, or ask a question about that specific field. You will need a free GitHub account.
Use the GitHub Issue Tracker. When opening an issue, try to include:
- Which data class the field belongs to (Synthesis, Characterization, Reaction, Simulation)
- What the field should be called and what it means
- Why it is needed — a concrete example from your research helps a lot
- Whether it should be Mandatory, Recommended, or Optional, and why
Not sure whether a field exists, or how to annotate something? Use the GitHub Discussions forum — no issue required.
Download the vocabulary reference workbook for a structured overview of all fields, organised by data class and colour-coded by importance (Mandatory / Recommended / Optional). The workbook opens with an Introduction sheet and a Legend sheet explaining the colour coding and column meanings.
The schema is the authoritative source — the workbook is generated from it automatically.
If you want to contribute a schema change yourself — add a class, slot, or enumeration — please first open an issue to discuss the change. Then follow the developer guidelines in CONTRIBUTING.md on GitHub.
For detailed instructions on how to structure a new preparation method, characterisation technique, reactor type, or simulation method, see the How to Extend page.
If you are new to CoreMeta4Cat and just want to check whether your dataset covers the right metadata fields, the Getting Started page is the right place to begin — no GitHub account or coding knowledge needed.