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Controlled Terms and External Authorities

CEDAR templates can require identifiers instead of unconstrained text:

Both store a resolvable identifier together with a human-readable label. Their lookups are the only form controls that depend on CEDAR network services.

Controlled-Term Fields

A template may combine four kinds of value constraint:

Constraint Permitted values
Ontology Any class in the named ontology.
Branch Any class below the named root class.
Class One specified class.
Value set Any member of the named value set.

As the user types, the CEE sends the text and the template constraint to CEDAR's integrated-search endpoint. Selecting a result stores the term.

Configure Terminology Lookup

{
  "terminologyBaseUrl": "https://terminology.metadatacenter.org/"
}

The base URL must end in /. The CEE appends bioportal/integrated-search; do not include that route in the setting.

There is no default endpoint. If the setting is absent, controlled-term fields return no suggestions and the CEE reports the missing key once. Other fields continue to work.

Stored Value

The instance records both the IRI and label:

"disease": {
  "@id": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/DOID_10652",
  "rdfs:label": "Alzheimer's disease"
}

The selected value also links to its BioPortal page in the interface.

A controlled-term field does not accept free text. If the user leaves an unresolved value, the CEE clears it or restores the previous valid term and displays an explanation.

External Authorities

The CEE supports seven authority field types:

Authority Identifies Search input
ORCID Researcher Name or ORCID
ROR Institution Name or ROR
DOI Publication or dataset Title or DOI
PubMed Publication Title or PubMed ID
RRID Research resource Name or RRID
NIH Grant Grant Grant details or NIH grant ID
PFAS Chemical Name or PFAS identifier

Each field offers suggestions and stores the selected record's persistent identifier. Unresolved text is handled in the same way as a controlled-term field.

Configure the Bridge

{
  "bridgeBaseUrl": "https://bridge.metadatacenter.org/"
}

This base URL must also end in / and has no default. The CEE appends the authority-specific route:

Authority Search route Details route
ORCID ext-auth/orcid/search-by-name ext-auth/orcid
ROR ext-auth/ror/search-by-name ext-auth/ror
DOI ext-auth/doi/search-by-name ext-auth/doi
PubMed ext-auth/pmid/search-by-name ext-auth/pmid
RRID ext-auth/rrid/search-by-name ext-auth/rrid
NIH Grant ext-auth/nih-grant/search-by-name ext-auth/nih-grant
PFAS ext-auth/comp-tox/search-by-name ext-auth/comp-tox

Service Failures

The CEE distinguishes a failed request from an empty result. A failed request is shown as an unavailable search so the user knows to try again later. Other parts of the form remain usable.

Validation Boundary

Local validation checks that a controlled value has a well-formed @id and a matching rdfs:label. It does not verify that an existing value still belongs to the ontology, branch, class, or value set declared by the template; that would require a terminology-service request.

See Validation and the Data Quality Report for the complete list of local checks.