Inheritance

tDAR allows you to "inherit" the metadata that you entered at the project level to describe the documents or other resources associated with that project. Inheriting metadata from the project to the document helps you to simplify your data entry.

You will see a checkbox labeled "Inherit values from parent project" in many of the data entry sections on the document page (and on other resource entry pages). Use this checkbox to inherit the relevant values from the associated project to the individual resource. 

To "inherit" values from the parent project to the document here, check the box labeled "Inherit values from parent project".

What if I change the values in my project?

If you change any metadata values at the project level, tDAR will update those "inherited" values at the resource level. 

For example, if you change "Investigation Types" for your project, any resource that inherited "Investigation Types" from that project will be automatically updated.

What if I only want to inherit "some" of the values in my project?

You can inherit values by clicking on the "inherit values..." box, and then un-select the box to make additional changes that are particular to that resource. For example, you can inherit the spatial information from a project to a related resource. You can then un-select the "inherit values..." box to add or subtract location keyword terms particular to that individual resource. 

You can also use the project as a template for your resource entry. You can simply enable inheritance to "copy" the values from the project, and then turn inheritance off to make specific changes.