Building a Disciplinary Metadata Standards Directory

Alexander Ball,Rebecca Koskela,Jane Greenberg,Keith Jeffery,Sean Chen,Cristina Perez

doi:10.2218/ijdc.v9i1.308

Abstract

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) Metadata Standards Directory Working Group (MSDWG) is building a directory of descriptive, discipline-specific metadata standards. The purpose of the directory is to promote the discovery, access and use of such standards, thereby improving the state of research data interoperability and reducing duplicative standards development work.This work builds upon the UK Digital Curation Centre's Disciplinary Metadata Catalogue, a resource created with much the same aim in mind. The first stage of the MSDWG's work was to update and extend the information contained in the catalogue. In the current, second stage, a new platform is being developed in order to extend the functionality of the directory beyond that of the catalogue, and to make it easier to maintain and sustain. Future work will include making the directory more amenable to use by automated tools.

Highlights

There are many barriers that need to be overcome in order for the full benefit of data sharing to be realized
The Research Data Alliance (RDA) – an international initiative supported by the European Commission and the US and Australian governments – aims to break down these barriers and thereby develop a global data infrastructure (Parsons, 2013; Showstack, 2012)
The Marine Metadata Interoperability Project list of references to content standards.3. None of these had all the qualities desired for the Metadata Standards Directory: some were static and unable to be curated by the community, while the others concentrated on a particular group of disciplines

Summary

Introduction

There are many barriers that need to be overcome in order for the full benefit of data sharing to be realized. The Metadata Standards Directory Working Group (MSDWG) was set up in 2013 with the aim of implementing a prototype wiki-based directory of metadata standards relevant to research data (Greenberg, Jeffery & Koskela, 2013). Science Data Literacy Project list of metadata standards (Qin, Small & D’Ignazio, 2008);. The Marine Metadata Interoperability Project list of references to content standards.. In parallel with the establishment of the MSDWG, the UK Digital Curation Centre (DCC) had independently developed its own Disciplinary Metadata Catalogue; this was launched in January 2013. The MSDWG evaluated the resource and found that it aligned closely with its own ideals It entered into a collaboration with the DCC, using the Disciplinary Metadata Catalogue as a starting point for the RDA Metadata Standards Directory. 144 | Building a Disciplinary Metadata Standards Directory doi:10.2218/ijdc.v9i1.308

Motivation

Conclusions