Metadata: Data about your Data: Home

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.

This definition comes from the National Institute Standards Organization (NISO) publication Understanding Metadata

Metadata in Plain Language - USGS gives a good overview for creating metadata

Minimal metadata to keep with the data:

• About the project:
  • Title, people, key dates, funders and grants
• About the data:
  • Title, key dates, creator(s), subjects, rights included files, format(s), versions, checksums
  • Interpretive aids: codebooks, data dictionaries, algorighms, code

"The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." -author unknown

Dublin Core - Defines fifteen basic metadata elements for resource discovery in a cross-disciplinary information environment, designed for interoperability. Learn more at about the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. 

Disciplinary Metadata - from the Digital Curation Centre in the UK

Arts -

• Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA)
• Visual Resources Association (VRA)

Biological data - Darwin Core - examples

Ecological data - Ecological Metadata Language (EML)

• EML Best Practices for LTER sites - LTER Information Management

Geospatial data  - FGDC - Federal Geographic Data Committee

Humanities, Social Sciences and Linguistics - Text Encoding Inititiative (TEI)

Scientific data - Directory Interchange Format (DIF)

Social Sciences and Archiving -

• Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)
• Encoded Archival Description (EAD)

What's in a Data Dictionary and more from USGS

Creating a Data Dictionary with template from USDA Ag Data Commons

Learning Data Analytics - LinkedIn Learning course includes Creating a Data Dictionary 

Good list of metadata editors and tools from DataONE - includes editors for Geospatial and Ecological data as well as editors for more generic data.

Additional Metadata editors:

Geospatial Data -

• CSAS Metadata Program - New web-based metadata generator/editor from the USGS
• Formal metadata: information and software - Included tools, tips and advanced tops from the USGS

Ecological data - Morpho - Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity

Bioldiversity data - Darwin Archive Spreadsheet Processor from Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) generates EML from a spreadsheet template

Scientific data - Directory Interchange Format (DIF)

Social Science and Archiving -

• DDI Tools - List of Freeware and Commercial tools for working with DDI docs from Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)
• EAD Toolkit - A variety of EAD related tools from the California Digital Library

Humanities, Social Sciences and Linguistics - TEI Tools from Text Encoding Inititiative (TEI)

Arts -

• CDWA Lite Schema - XML schema from The Getty Research Institute
• VRA Core schemas and documentation - from Library of Congress 

Metadata cleanup - 

• Cleanup - guide from Free Your Metadata using Open Refine

You may need to use a crosswalk to convert your metadata to a different standard. Examples include:

FGDC to a variety of schemas - from NOAA

CDWA to VRA 4.0 to MODS to EAD - from The Getty