...
If you are not yet familiar with the batch metadata editing process for ScholarWorks, please consult the training documentation created by David Walker.
...
Field #1: Title (November 2021-December 2021)
Overview
In 2020-2021, the MWG identified the need for additional clarity regarding capitalization practices for the Title field, which formerly advised users to capitalize the first word and any proper nouns, as shown in the screenshot below.
...
Download the .zip file for your campus. Contact David if you don’t have that URL.
There is a separate CSV file within the .zip file for each data model/work form, of which we currently have four: dataset, educational resource, publication, and thesis. If your campus will be cleaning up Title metadata for more than just ETDs, you will need to complete the following clean up steps for each CSV separately.
For each CSV file, download it and save it locally. Then delete all fields (columns) except for id (column A) and title (column I).
Add a new column C (you can name it “title_revised” for now), and in cell C2, type =PROPER(B2) and press enter/return on your keyboard. This will convert the all caps text in B2 to title case.
Then fill the formula down the entire column. Please consult Excel’s documentation for additional guidance with that.
As noted above, this formula will capitalize the first letter of all words and lower case the rest, so spot checking will likely be required to identify those words that should be all caps (e.g., acronyms) and identify words that should not be capitalized (e.g., a, an, of, at).
You may want to consider using find and replace to automate this process a bit. For example, you could replace all instances of “Of “ with “of “ as shown in the screenshot to the right. Just be sure to include the subsequent space after the word in order to avoid replacing longer words that simply begin with the same letters, and also be sure to check the “Match case” option.
Once the spot checking is completed, delete the original title column, and rename the “title_revised” column “title”.
That’s it! Be sure to save the CSV again, and you can send the file back to David. He will take it from there and give you the opportunity for a “sanity check” before finalizing the changes.
...