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Research Data Management and Sharing: Metadata

A guide for researchers on how to manage and share the data they generate.

Metadata

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Metadata is data about data, or, data that provides information about other data. There are a number of considerations to take into account when thinking about metadata and your research.

  • Decide on a metadata standard to use - there are many different standards, including discipline-specific ones
  • Create a metadata collection plan - how will you describe your data?
  • Document software and workflows
  • Use both informal (information in laboratory or field notebooks, "readme" files) and formal (standardized) metadata to describe your data

Source: Strasser C. Research data management: A primer [Internet]. Baltimore MD: National Information Standards Organization; 2015. Available from: https://www.niso.org/publications/primer-research-data-management

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