---
aid: caltech
name: California Institute of Technology — Surface Vocabulary
generated: '2026-08-19'
method: derived
source:
  - https://data.caltech.edu/api/records?size=1
  - https://data.caltech.edu/oai2d?verb=ListMetadataFormats
  - https://service.scedc.caltech.edu/fdsnws/station/1/query
  - https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/TAP/capabilities
  - https://feeds.library.caltech.edu/people/people_list.json
description: >-
  The terms that actually appear in Caltech-operated contracts and responses. Caltech
  publishes no institution-wide vocabulary; this is derived from observed payloads. Note
  that the institution has FOUR independent vocabularies, one per operating unit, with no
  shared term between them — a direct consequence of a federated institution where the
  Library, the Seismological Laboratory and IPAC each engineer separately.

domains:

  - domain: Research data (CaltechDATA / CaltechAUTHORS, Caltech Library)
    standard_basis: InvenioRDM record model, DataCite 4, Dublin Core, DCAT, MARC21
    terms:
      - term: record
        meaning: A published deposit — dataset, software, thesis or publication metadata.
      - term: pids
        meaning: Persistent identifiers block carrying the DOI and the OAI identifier.
      - term: doi
        meaning: DataCite DOI under Caltech's own prefix 10.22002.
      - term: creators / contributors
        meaning: Attributed people or organizations, with typed identifiers (ORCID, ROR).
      - term: resource_type
        meaning: Controlled deposit type.
      - term: access
        meaning: Access rights block governing record and file visibility.
      - term: custom_fields
        meaning: 'Caltech-specific extensions, observed: journal:journal, caltech:groups, caltech:publication_status.'
    metadata_formats_advertised:
      - oai_dc
      - dcat
      - marc21
      - marcxml
      - datacite
      - oai_datacite
      - datacite4
      - oai_datacite4

  - domain: Seismology (SCEDC, Caltech Seismological Laboratory)
    standard_basis: FDSN Web Services 1.1, StationXML, QuakeML, miniSEED
    terms:
      - term: net
        meaning: Network code. `CI` is the California Integrated Seismic Network, Southern California.
      - term: sta
        meaning: Station code, e.g. `PAS` (Pasadena).
      - term: cha
        meaning: Channel code, e.g. `BHZ`.
      - term: loc
        meaning: Location code; `--` denotes blank.
      - term: EventID
        meaning: SCEDC catalog event identifier.
      - term: MagType
        meaning: 'Magnitude scale code, observed: h (local, historic), w (moment).'
      - term: ET
        meaning: 'Event type, observed: eq (earthquake).'
      - term: GT
        meaning: 'Geographic type / location quality flag, observed: r, t.'
      - term: Catalog
        meaning: Source catalog, `SCEDC`.

  - domain: Astronomy (IRSA, NED, NASA Exoplanet Archive — Caltech/IPAC)
    standard_basis: IVOA — TAP, ADQL, VOTable, VOSI, DALI, SCS, SIA v2
    terms:
      - term: TAP
        meaning: Table Access Protocol — ADQL query interface over archive catalogs.
      - term: sync / async
        meaning: TAP execution modes.
      - term: ADQL
        meaning: Astronomical Data Query Language, the SQL dialect TAP accepts.
      - term: VOTable
        meaning: The IVOA XML result and error serialization.
      - term: TAP_SCHEMA
        meaning: Self-describing catalog of the tables a TAP service exposes.
      - term: QUERY_STATUS
        meaning: VOTable INFO element carrying OK or ERROR.
      - term: SCS
        meaning: Simple Cone Search — positional catalog query.
      - term: SIA
        meaning: Simple Image Access — image discovery.
    capabilities_declared:
      - ivo://ivoa.net/std/VOSI#capabilities
      - ivo://ivoa.net/std/VOSI#availability
      - ivo://ivoa.net/std/VOSI#tables
      - ivo://ivoa.net/std/DALI#examples
      - ivo://ivoa.net/std/TAP

  - domain: Identity (IMSS)
    standard_basis: SAML 2.0, Shibboleth, InCommon / eduGAIN metadata
    terms:
      - term: entityID
        meaning: 'https://idp.caltech.edu/idp/shibboleth — Caltech''s federation identity.'
      - term: Scope
        meaning: '`caltech.edu` — the domain over which the IdP asserts scoped attributes.'
      - term: IDPSSODescriptor
        meaning: The SSO role advertised by the identity provider.
      - term: AttributeAuthorityDescriptor
        meaning: The attribute query role, reachable over SOAP.
      - term: registrationAuthority
        meaning: '`https://incommon.org` — the federation that registered the entity.'

observation: >-
  There is no cross-cutting Caltech vocabulary and no institution-wide identifier that
  joins a person across CaltechDATA, CaltechAUTHORS and Caltech Library Feeds other than
  ORCID. ORCID is the de facto join key across Caltech's research surfaces.