Data Management and Sharing: Metadata

Metadata are information about the context, content, quality, provenance, and/or accessibility of data. This is the critical information for ensuring the longevity and reproducibility of research data.

Metadata can exist in a variety of different formats. Examples are listed below:

• Resource Discovery is locating, accessing, and retrieving varied and distributed data.
• Resource Description is the differentiating of information and describing the characteristics of a resource.
• Rights Management is the authorized access, display, and use permissions for objects to protect intellectual property rights, confidentiality, privacy, and security of information.
• Preservation of data is the storing of the technical details on the format, structure and use of the digital content, history of all actions performed on the resource including changes and decisions, authenticity information such as technical features or custody history, and responsibilities and rights information applicable to preservation actions.
• The Structural aspects of data facilitate direct access to key points in complex objects to aid the navigation and access to different parts of the same data set or data object.
• Administration of the metadata captures the data's location, integrity, ownership, and authorship.

Metadata can exist in a variety of different formats. Here are a few of the most common:

If you are uncertain of what metadata standards may be in use in your discipline, the Research Data Alliance Metadata Standards Working Group maintains a directory of metadata standards by discipline, including related tools and use cases.

In addition, if you intend to deposit your data in a data repository, this repository may have guidelines on what metadata standard(s) should be used to describe deposited data.

Controlled vocabularies are a collection of preferred terms that are used to retrieve content consistently. Predefined and authorized terms are mandated, in contrast to tags or keywords, which are not controlled, thus ambiguous and inconsistent. Taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies are types of controlled vocabulary.

• They facilitate searching and meta-analysis within a data set
• They enhance the interoperability of data sets in repositories with data from multiple sources

How are controlled vocabularies used?

• They are used in metadata records to express how content is organized so users know how to search for content
• A more complex scenario would be using a published controlled vocabulary as a schema for your database. This could make it easier to deposit your data into a disciplinary repository that is based on the same vocabulary

Which vocabularies should I use?

In some fields, vocabularies are well-established, while in other disciplines, they are still emerging. You may want to check professional societies and journals for ones that have been developed in your disciplinary area. The list below is a starting point. JISC Digital Media has developed a more comprehensive Directory of Metadata Vocabularies that may provide guidance, as well.

If you would like assistance in finding, adapting, and using an appropriate vocabulary, one of the following specialists may be able to help.

• A data curation consultant [email datamanagement (at) unl.edu]
• Your department's subject librarian
• An IT consultant in your department, school or college