Star2xml: metadata converter into XML

Welcome to the landing page for star2xml - a tool developed by the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) that enables users to convert metadata into XML format that is compliant with EGA's programmatic submission system.

For starters, if you are not sure what metadata is in this context, you may want to explore our brief metadata introduction. .

Star2xml is useful for users who have already submitted their data to the EGA and want to also submit their metadata programmatically without having to create the XML files manually. The need for these XMLs containing metadata is explained in the EGA's metadata schemas and programmatic submission guidelines.

In summary, star2xml allows for users to deposit metadata in a tabular format (e.g. excel spreadsheet) and transform it into a compliant XML format. This saves time in large submissions, where the sheer size of metadata makes it difficult to manage. For smaller submissions, it is recommended to use EGA's Submitter Portal (SP) instead.

The installation of the tool is straightforward, and it contains detailed documentation on how to use it in its GitHub repository .

While star2xml can help users convert metadata formats, it does not validate the resulting metadata against EGA's schemas. Therefore, after creating your XMLs, you should still validate your metadata before submitting it to EGA, as described in the documentation for programmatic metadata validation.