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Journal article
Analysis and synthesis of metadata goals for scientific data
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, v 63(8), pp 1505-1520
Aug 2012
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
The proliferation of discipline-specific metadata schemes contributes to artificial barriers that can impede interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. The authors considered this problem by examining the domains, objectives, and architectures of nine metadata schemes used to document scientific data in the physical, life, and social sciences. They used a mixed-methods content analysis and Greenberg's () metadata objectives, principles, domains, and architectural layout (MODAL) framework, and derived 22 metadata-related goals from textual content describing each metadata scheme. Relationships are identified between the domains (e.g., scientific discipline and type of data) and the categories of scheme objectives. For each strong correlation (>0.6), a Fisher's exact test for nonparametric data was used to determine significance (p?<?.05). Significant relationships were found between the domains and objectives of the schemes. Schemes describing observational data are more likely to have scheme harmonization (compatibility and interoperability with related schemes) as an objective; schemes with the objective abstraction (a conceptual model exists separate from the technical implementation) also have the objective sufficiency (the scheme defines a minimal amount of information to meet the needs of the community); and schemes with the objective data publication do not have the objective element refinement. The analysis indicates that many metadata-driven goals expressed by communities are independent of scientific discipline or the type of data, although they are constrained by historical community practices and workflows as well as the technological environment at the time of scheme creation. The analysis reveals 11 fundamental metadata goals for metadata documenting scientific data in support of sharing research data across disciplines and domains. The authors report these results and highlight the need for more metadata-related research, particularly in the context of recent funding agency policy changes.
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Details
- Title
- Analysis and synthesis of metadata goals for scientific data
- Creators
- Craig Willis - Univ N Carolina, Sch Lib & Informat Sci, Metadata Res Ctr, Chapel Hill, NC 27515 USAJane Greenberg - University of North Carolina at Chapel HillHollie White - Duke University
- Publication Details
- Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, v 63(8), pp 1505-1520
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Number of pages
- 16
- Grant note
- 1147166 / Div Of Biological Infrastructure; National Science Foundation (NSF); NSF - Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) 0743720 / Direct For Biological Sciences; National Science Foundation (NSF); NSF - Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000306758600003
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84864413745
- Other Identifier
- 991020531964504721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Computer Science, Information Systems
- Information Science & Library Science