Metadata in the Areas of Repositories and Research Data
Thursday, 9. June 2016, 11h
Susanne Blumesberger
Library and Archive of the Vienna University
Stefan Szepe
MDW University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
Metadata, or the description of data, plays a large role in the research data cycle. It facilitates the search for data, sharing with other researchers, subsequent use by others, perhaps even in other contexts, and interoperability with other systems. For researchers, metadata does require additional effort, effort which is rewarded over the length of a research project and which should be accounted for in the research design, as subsequent research projects can build on previous data much more efficiently if managed correctly. Repository managers, librarians and technicians are faced with further challenges. They must remained informed and up-to-date about metadata standards, thesauri and policies in order to keep up with technical progress. The trend towards open science requires adequate management of metadata, for example, the use of homogeneous metadata standards and linked open data. Understandability and quality control of metadata are further topics which should be considered.
Using the two use cases, which cover the humanities and natural sciences, this lecture will also discuss which aspects of metadata must be considered, both from a technical and non-technical perspective. It can be assumed that the climate data of the future will not only be retrieved by climate researchers, but also by individuals from outside the field. A multi-language, target-audience oriented and universally understandable description of the data would be appropriate. In the case of „German in Austria,“ many data types are represented, including audio, video and text data, which require differing descriptions. In addition, a „citizen science“ component is planned, which encourages the use of universally understandable descriptions of data. The goal of this lecture is to raise the awareness about the importance of metadata in research data management.
