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Contextual Details Needed to Make Data Meaningful to Others

Contextual Details Needed to Make Data Meaningful to Others. Prepared by: Liza Coburn, MBL-WHOI John Furfey , MBL-WHOI Alex May, Tufts Alicia Morris, Tufts Jen Walton, MBL-WHOI. Learning Objectives. Understand what metadata is Understand why metadata is important

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Contextual Details Needed to Make Data Meaningful to Others

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  1. Contextual Details Needed to Make Data Meaningful to Others Prepared by: Liza Coburn, MBL-WHOI John Furfey, MBL-WHOI Alex May, Tufts Alicia Morris, Tufts Jen Walton, MBL-WHOI CC BY-NC

  2. Learning Objectives • Understand what metadata is • Understand why metadata is important • Identify applicable standards for documenting and capturing metadata • Understand disciplinary practices associated with the collection and sharing of metadata • Identify an approach to creating metadata for a project Module 3: Metadata

  3. What is Metadata? Metadata is structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource. Metadata is often called data about data or information about information” (NISO, Understanding Metadata 2004;1). Module 3: Metadata

  4. You Must Have Metadata to: • Find data from other researchers to support your research; • use the data that you do find; • help other professionals to find and use data from your research; • use your own data in the future when you may have forgotten details of the research. Module 3: Metadata

  5. Basic Types of Metadata • Descriptive metadata • Structural metadata • Administrative metadata Module 3: Metadata

  6. How Metadata Facilitates Discoverability and Reuse • Accessibility • Discoverability Module 3: Metadata

  7. Some Metadata Standards Module 3: Metadata

  8. Module 3: Metadata

  9. Controlled Vocabularies Eliminate Ambiguity • Preferred spellings • catalog vs. catalogue • Scientific vs. popular terms • parrots vs. psittacidae • Preferred synonyms • automatons vs. robots Module 3: Metadata

  10. Technical Standards ISO 8601 technical standard: • Year Only: YYYY (eg 1997) • Year and month: YYYY-MM (eg1997-07) • Complete date: YYYY-MM-DD (eg 1997-07-16) • Media types can be problematic as well: • The MIME media types helps you chose among the following: Application, audio, example, image, message, model, multipart, text, video Module 3: Metadata

  11. Media Types The MIME media types: • Application • Audio • Image • Model • Multipart • Message • Text • Video Module 3: Metadata

  12. General Metadata Elements Module 3: Metadata

  13. Best Practices • Consult a librarian! • Consistent data entry is important • Avoid extraneous punctuation • Avoid most abbreviations • Use templates and macros when possible • Extract pre-existing metadata • Keep a data dictionary • Always use an established metadata standard Module 3: Metadata

  14. Activity • Use the Dublin Core metadata elements to create a metadata “record” for a data set you are working with • Use the Dryad Dublin Core record as a guide. Module 3: Metadata

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