Concepts and terms

The concepts and terms defined here are used throughout this guide.

MICHAEL platform

A set of software tools to create, store, manager and publish information about digital cultural heritage in Europe.

Production module

A part of the MICHAEL platform, the production module is responsible for the creation and management of data. A publishing module is also available.

MICHAEL database (or MICHAEL instance)

A MICHAEL database or instance is an XML database, managed with the production module, where information is stored and managed.

Editor

A person responsible for creating and managing content in a MICHAEL database. This guide is intended for editors.

Record type (or data type)

A kind of information in the database. The MICHAEL data model defines five entities, represented as five record types in the production module: digital collections, institutions, projects or programmes, services or products and physical collections.

Record (or document)

One entry in the database. It is an XML document containing information describing an object, whether it is a digital collection, an institution, a project or programme, a service or product, or a physical collection. A record is thus of a certain type .

Field

One piece of information within a record. Fields are stored using one or more XML elements and attributes.

Input form

A Web-based form for creating or modifying records in the database.

Folder

A container in a database. A MICHAEL database is always organized as a hierarchical structure of folders. Folders may contain records or other folders. A folder has a code (similar to a folder name on a hard disk) and may have a title in multiple languages.