Introduction
Welcome to the documentation for the BeStMeta Metadata Schema — a cross-domain metadata schema for video tracking assays (VTAs) with a focus on ecotoxicology and biomedical research.
What is this?
BeStMeta provides structured, machine-readable metadata for VTA datasets and individual trials, so that experiments are easier to find, understand, and reuse. It is designed to improve FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) compliance.
How to read these docs
- Introduction (you are here) — a short orientation to the schema.
- Overview on the Schema — one page per class. Each page lists that class's slots (fields), their data types, whether they are required or recommended, and how they map to external ontologies.
- Enums & Types — the controlled vocabularies (enumerations) and data types used across the schema.
The schema at a glance
The schema is organised around a top-level VTADataset record, which nests a
number of thematic classes:
| Class | What it captures |
|---|---|
| VTADataset | Study-level, licensing and bibliographic metadata (the root). |
| ExperimentalConditions | Organism, treatment, assay design and environment. |
| VideoHardware | Cameras, optics and physical recording setup. |
| AcquisitionParameters | Video acquisition and recording settings. |
| TrackingAnalysis | Tracking software, algorithms and derived metrics. |
| StatisticalAnalysis | Statistical tests, models and significance criteria. |
Use the navigation menu on the left to explore each class in detail.
Reusing the schema
The schema is written in LinkML. The canonical source
lives in this repository as bestmeta_schema.yaml. From it you can generate JSON Schema,
SHACL, OWL, Python classes, and more, using the standard LinkML generators.
This documentation is generated automatically from the LinkML source. To edit
this introduction, change docs/index.md. To restyle or rebrand the site, edit
site.config.yml.
The content here needs to change, but can be done later