ISAN Registration best practices

For a proper identification with ISAN and to facilitate the search and reuse of the ISAN by other stakeholders, descriptive metadata associated to a work must be of good quality and formatted properly. Data anomalies will disturb the duplicate check process and create confusions for other parties that need the ISAN. You are strongly encouraged to follow the few rules provided here for an optimal registration of your work. 

For a detailed description of all ISAN data fields, you can refer to the documents: Instructions to bulk load excel form (isan3.0)

Titles

• There must only be one title per title element. If several titles are available for a work (alternate titles, other languages…) then submit them each in a distinct title element.
  • If several titles are concatenated in the same string (often with a separator character or under brackets) then split them in as many titles elements as titles available.
  • Examples: Heroes Of The East / Zhong hua zhang fu

                                   - Heroes Of The East

                                   - Zhong hua zhang fu

• Subtitles that are part of the main title must not be split, as for example parts of a sequels:
  • Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
  • The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie

• Submit as much as alternate titles as possible, in particular the "international title" and other known titles in other languages. If foreign titles are not yet known, you are strongly encouraged to add them later when the work is distributed in other countries.
• Remove comments, descriptions, or other information that is not part of the title:
  • Years: e.g. Kingdom of the Vampire (1991)
  • Version information: e.g. La Soif (Remastered version) >> register a V-ISAN instead
  • Directors:  e.g. Faut il tuer le clown (J.P.Viaud) 
• Title language: This is the language in which the title is written, not the language spoken in the country of distribution. 
• For episodes without a known distinct title, use the appropriate standardised representation from the following list:
  • series_title - season xx - episode zz (xx = season number or ID, zz = episode number)
  • series_title - season_title_or_name - episode zz (zz = episode number)
  • series_title - episode zz (zz = episode number)
  • series_title - part zz (zz = part number)
  • Notes:
    • The date of first publication / broadcasting is required  for episodes without titles. Without this information it can become impossile in some situations to distinguish episodes from each other as sometimes episodes are renumbered when distributed in foreign countries.
    • Always use the episode titles given by the production (as mentioned in the generic). Use the abbove standardized representations only when episodes are titleless (e.g. entertainment programs, magazines, ...). Do not use other self defined patterns that differ from the above ttile representation, it would likely cause duplicate ISAN registration (now or in the future) and prevent the proper retrieval of these ISAN and their reuse in other databases. 

 Year Of Reference

• Provide the production year or copyright year of the work.
• Only provide years that are comprise between 1885 and current year + 3

Date Of 1^st Publication (or release)

• The exact date when the work is first presented to the public in its country of origine. When the excact date is unknown then use the year of first release.
• Only provide dates that are comprise between 1885 and current year + 3
• Notes: The date of first publication / broadcasting is required  for episodes without titles.

Duration

• Provide the approximate duration of the work, it can be set in minutes (Duration Unit = MIN) or in seconds (Duration Unit = SEC).
• Only provide an integer number e.g 90 for a one-and-a-half-hour movie, representations like 01:30:00 or 1h30 are not allowed.
• Make sure that the Duration Unit corresponds to the duration provided
• Values like 0 or NULL or EMPTY… are not allowed.  

Country of Reference

• The country(ies) of production is expected (i.e. where the main production company’s headquarters are located).
• Provide one country per Country Of Reference element.
• Use only the countries listed in the drop-down list (official ISO list).

Original Language

• The original language(s) are expected.
• Provide one language per Original Language element.
• Use only the languages listed in the drop-down list (official ISO list).

Companies

• A list of production companies is expected
• Provide one company name per Company field
• Do not provide the name of the producer (physical person), but the name of the production company

Participants

• Provide at least one Director, if there are more provide them all. In the event there is no known director, set "unknown" (in lowercase) as value for the director name.
• If directors have a publickly known pseudonym, provide both as distinct directors, one with the real name and the other with the pseudonyme.
• Names should be provided in mixed case (e.g. not UPPERCASE only)
• Do not provide abbreviations, name prefix or suffix.
• Provide the main actors
• Provide only one name per Participant element
  • If several names are concatenated in the same string (often with a separator character or under brackets) then split them in as many Participant elements as participants available. Example: Joel and Ethan Coen
  • Joel Coen
  • Ethan Coen

• Sometimes directors or actors have a nick name provided under brackets next to their real name: split it into two participant elements
  • Example: J. William ("Willy") Djarisky
• Sometimes participants are grouped under a common name:
• Coen brothers
  • Joel Coen
  • Ethan Coen
• Remove comments, descriptions, or other information that is not part of the participant name:
  • John Taylor III >> John Taylor
• Producers (Physical persons) can be provided here, not in the Company element. Similarly, production companies must not be provided here but in the Company element

Series

• Groups are in the middle of the Works hierarchy, between Series and Episodes. A typical grouping of Episodes are Seasons, but other kinds of groups are possible.
• Groups are identified by an ISAN.
• Group title shall include the series title and a Group description, such as in the following examples:
  • series_title - season xx (group for season of a fictionnal series)
  • series_title - Edit 10 min episodes (group for alternate edit)
  • series_title - Specials (group for special contents of a series (prime, Christmas special, ...))
  • series_title - A thematic title (group for subdivision by theme of a serial program)
  • ....
• No single ISAN can be assigned to cover a season of a series as a whole.
• The Group ISAN does not cover a series as a whole.
• Groups inherit some information from the series and contain specific information related to them.

Episodes

Linked Identifiers

• Provide linked identifiers such as IMDB, EIDR, etc... if you have them, it facilitates the dissemination of the ISAN in other databases.
• Contact ISAN-IA (cs@isan.org)for details on supported linked IDs and how to use them.

Registrant Work ID

This can be your internal identifier or a token that you generate for the purpose of registering your works in the ISAN registry. This value must be unique, if not unique, the registration will be rejected.