odMLtables - Table-based editing of odML metadata collections

Synopsis

odMLtables is a tool to support working with metadata collections for electrophysiological data and is described in detail in Sprenger et al. (2019) odMLtables: A User-Friendly Approach for Managing Metadata of Neurophysiological Experiments.

The odML file format and library API provides a means to store hierarchical metadata collections for electrophysiological data. Such collections typically consist of a large number of key-value pairs organized by a hierarchy of sections (see Grewe et al. (2011) Frontiers in Neuroinformatics 5:16). However, for editing and viewing metadata the use of standard spreadsheet software offering a flat tabular representation of a selected subset of metadata is desireable (cf., Zehl et al. (2016) Frontiers in Neuroinformatics 10:26). odMLtables provides a set of library functions as well as a graphical user interface that offers to swtich between hierarchical and flat representations of their metadata collection, and provides functions that assist in working with these files.

Currently, odMLtables supports:

  • converting metadata collections between the hierarchical odML format and table-based representations (i.e., xls, csv)

  • creating a new table for starting a metadata collection

  • comparing sections within a metadata collections

  • filtering metadata collections to extract a specific subcollection

  • merging multiple metadata collections into one file

Indices and tables