Metadata Practices
Metadata is documented information that describes research data. Good metadata provides context so that others may discover, validate, reuse, and reproduce research. Metadata can be broken down into two categories: project-level metadata and data-level metadata. It’s best practice to include both types.
Project level metadata includes basic information about who, what, why, where, when, and how.
- Data title and description
- Authors and collaborators
- Contact information
- Date published
- Location
- Unique identifiers, such as a URL or DOI
Data-level metadata provides deeper context about the data itself.
- Data types
- Data acquisitions details (instrument protocol information)
- Data processing methods
- Version formatting
- Data dictionary (abbreviations, codes, variables)
- Data cleaning protocols
- Data structure (folder hierarchy)
- Preferred citation format
Metadata Standards
Some disciplines have documented metadata standards. Check out the resources below to determine which metadata standard is most often used in your discipline. If you’re still unsure about which metadata standard you should use, a good rule of thumb is to include metadata within a readme.txt file.